MissEwa

I'm another one who is enjoying this season, but then I liked One World and while I fully acknowledge Redemption Island was terrible, I enjoyed seeing Rob walk away with it. I'm a bit basic when it comes to Survivor, I guess - if it's my faves dominating, I'm happy. And I like that at least this season there is a little bit of suspense as to who is going to win. It made every bit of sense for Dom and Wendell to take Laurel on reward and it's probably good that they did - Donathan had all but flipped, and Laurel was on the fence, which I feel like they knew. Leaving Laurel at camp with Angela and Kellyn would have been a terrible idea. They should have spun it differently to Donathan though - told him that the reason they didn't take him was because he was the only one they trusted to stay behind with Kellyn and Angela, that he was their number three but they couldn't let on about that because Laurel was at risk of flipping blah blah blah. It would have made Donathan feel somewhat in control, and I think he needs to feel that. Donathan really blew up his spot tonight. I know he's at least trying, so I give him credit, but he's trying very badly. On the other hand, is he now playing for goat? I liked that RC a lot. It was a little confusing to watch but the idea of it was cool - like a jumbo version of the FIC from Tocantins. I felt terrible for Wendell at IC. Yes, it was his own fault, and he knew that, but maaaan - I would have whined too. And probably for longer. I also wonder if there was some strategy to it, not that he threw the challenge, because he's not an idiot, but that he saw bringing attention to it and then "conceding" as something that would make Laurel less likely to vote for him. Which... it did, as ridiculously stupid as it was. That really *should* have been a million-dollar mistake. I'm still confused about the idols. Apparently everyone knows Dom and Wendell have idols, but everyone is playing as though they don't. Of all the reasons Laurel brings up for not flipping - they'll split the FTC votes, it's not right after Wendell nearly won IC, they've protected me blah blah blah - surely one would be that they both have idols and that means a flip might backfire and then leave her top of their hitlist? People are just going about trying to get numbers to get them out without any sort of idol plan-b. I know (no need to explain to me again) this is almost certainly editing but I am just confused as to why this editing is happening.

Yeah, there had to be more to it than we were shown. Except it's not like the editing showed Chelsea either (not a problem unique to this episode, I know). The story of this episode was never 'Will it be Wendell or Chelsea?', it was 'Will Wendell prevail?' That it was Chelsea who went home was much less relevant to the narrative than the fact that it wasn't Wendell. And they often show people's names being thrown out as targets and that person not getting any votes. It just seems weird to me that the whole idol-counteracting part of their plan was *so* roundly ignored by the edit, that's all. I can't remember the last time we didn't at least get a ten-second 'what if he has an idol?' conversation.

This makes sense as what they should have done, but the focus the entire time seemed to be 100% about whether the girls had the numbers, like... to a point where it doesn't even seem possible that it could have *just* been the edit. I may not have been paying attention but I didn't hear (drink!) Naviti Strong come up at all at TC. The whole focus seemed to be on Donathan and Laurel - not as the almost-certain next targets, but as swing votes. If they were trying to bluff Dom and Wendell into thinking it was Donathan or Laurel, surely they would have just brought it back to Naviti strong over and over and over? I don't know. Maybe I have to watch it again.

From Chelsea's interview with Gordon Holmes: I don't not believe her, but this baffles me. Maybe it was the edit, but they had no back-up plan. They didn't even seem to be trying for a blindside. We didn't get any shots of any of the 3 Naviti women trying to convince Dom and Wendell that the target was Sebastian or to get them to vote Donathan/Laurel so if there was an idol it wouldn't bounce back onto one of them. If they had got Donathan and Laurel onside, were they really basing their entire play on Wendell just... not playing his idol (I know he didn't but that was a HELL of a gamble to take)?

Oh, I'd forgotten about that - there are way too many advantages this season. Theory: Donathan plans to flip against the four, Laurel snitches. Dom goes and "finds" an idol and is "caught" by Donathan. Dom makes out like only the two of them know about it, they'll share it etc. etc. then Donathan gets voted out when he tries to play it. Dom/Wendell/Laurel make F3 and Donathan's bitterness about the fake idol costs Dom his vote and Wendell wins. The end.

They didn't have the numbers to split, but this is still a good point. I know 'split up the power couple' was the objective but in this case Seabass would have been a better target. It also makes me wonder if Laurel was ever with them - surely if she actually wanted to get Wendell out she would have alerted them to the existence of at least one idol. I feel like I say this every week but Kellyn is AWFUL. Between that horrid bitter display about Wendell (who, yeah, turned down his family visit, but wasn't actually the one doing the picking, and had nothing to do with Sebastian's choices) and her need to over-explain everything as thought she is the first and only person to have ever played Survivor and had emotions. I still can't get a read on her edit - on the one hand, I feel like production loves her, but on the other she is coming across so, so poorly I can't see how it's not deliberate. I didn't like Donathan to start with, and then he grew on me and now I'm back around. He's had a couple of tastes of power in the last couple of weeks and it has gone straight to his head. I would have liked to see some reaction to figuring out that Jenna voted for him though - the double TC means we only got the blowback from the second one. I'm not usually a grassy-knoll person but that conversation between Don and Laurel about the vote seemed very... scripted. For a pair who have been aligned for a while, it was very expositiony and stilted, as though they were introducing each other to the tribe dynamics for the first time. It was weird. I am still curious about Chelsea's edit. She definitely *felt* like she had game, and I think she had more than we were shown (which... wouldn't have been hard). She didn't quit or get idolled out. In fact, if we knew her AT ALL they could have set this episode up as an actually suspenseful showdown, so WHY? ETA. We've already covered Seabass's vote face, but what was with Angela's faces when they were planning the vote? It was like she was playing into some sort of scary black-widow-type role but... no. Please no.

Ben was definitely obvious when the F4 twist kicked in. Before that I think there was reasonable doubt, I thought. Sarah and Adam were both kind of obvious if you knew to what to look for, but maybe less so to the average viewer. On the one hand, I'd like some suspense going into the end-game, but on the other, when they do try to make it less obvious everyone gets all upset about it (YMMV but Michele is a perfect example of this for me).

It's never dead certain, but there are a few seasons where at this point I'm like 'if it's anyone but X, then I will be shocked and confused at the edit'. Jeremy, Mike, Tyson, Cochran and Kim come to mind - the whole season felt like an inevitable march to their coronations. They made it quite obvious with Tony too but I wasn't 100% sure it wouldn't be Spencer. Phillipines was interesting because Malcolm was getting an edit that could have read this way but for some reason I was pretty sure he wasn't going to win. Kim aside (and I think that's just because she was so dominant there was no other way they could play it) these edits always seem to go to men. I feel like recently they've pulled back from these over-the-top obvious winner edits. Ben's was close but Chrissy was always a possibility, and Adam didn't become obvious until the final episode, for me anyway. I think if Dom wins this season it'll count in that Ben tier for me - probable, but not certain. If Wendell wins, it's more an Adam edit, without the dying mother (for now). Anyone else, and I'd be shocked.

They make it this obvious quite regularly. I'm hoping for a Wendell win, but Dom would absolutely not surprise me (or surprise me in how little it surprised me).

This scene kept cutting to a Dom confessional where he was saying he'd cut Wendell if he had to, so you may be right, but it is such a 'get a man who looks at you like...' moment.

I'm starting to wonder if Chelsea is a quit, or goes in some sort of ridiculous twist where they know the audience would be mad if they cared about her at all. It's the only explanation for her edit.

Laurel knows Kellyn voted for her (and once they hash it out, will probably know that Kellyn voted for her twice). I don't think she stands a chance there and even her gut wouldn't be stupid enough to tell her she does. Dom gave a confessional this week that he'd cut Wendell if he had to, that I thought might have been a point in the Wendell-win column - Dom will have an opportunity, but he won't cut him, just like Stephen never cut JT, and as a result Dom will lose. May be wishful thinking though.

I didn't think they were acting anything. Their competitiveness was clearly friendly, IMO. Hee. I thought this too. There was also a scene earlier where Dom was just looking at Wendel like he was crazy in love with him. These two are a little boring but I kind of like them. Mostly Wendell. They're in control, and they're not pretending that they're not, but they're mostly not smug assholes about it, and they seem to genuinely get along. See, I think Wendell's getting more of a winner's edit than Dom. It's a quieter edit, but he gets more nice beats. But I am pretty sure it'll be one of them. Which is fine. Better than the last couple of winners, IMO. I think Jenna dug her own hole. My read was that Donathan's offer was genuine, and that was his plan, but she played that woe-is-me-it's-me-I'm-not-going-to-even-try bluff at Tribal so badly that it seemed obvious she thought she had an idol and was actually much, much too smug about it, and I wonder if that either tipped Donathan off that there may have been a double-cross, or made him worry that Naviti might switch their votes based on her performance. She played everything this episode really badly, I thought. I don't get voting for Donathan - if Naviti *were* voting for him, they didn't need her vote for it to happen. She could have kept her hands clean, either keeping him as a jury vote (if he didn't play his idol) or an ally (if he did and they both voted out a Naviti). He looked so mad when he figured out she voted for him too. Unpopular opinion but I liked this episode and I liked this twist. It might have still worked out with Naviti in the majority in both "tribes", but it made the margin for idol-error much tighter. I don't get why Michael and Laurel voted for different people. I'm guessing Michael wanted to go Wendell (because he thought he had Kellyn on-side) and it was Laurel who switched, but I would have liked to have seen them talking. There are too many idols and advantages and I keep forgetting about them, which is annoying, but despite that I'm still on-board with this season. The only person left I really don't like is Kellyn, which is so rare and refreshing at this point in the game. Sebastian is still so weird and Chelsea and Angela are non-entities, but they're not awful people. I'd be happy with any of Dom/Wendell/Laurel/Donathan winning, which I did not think I'd say at the beginning of the season.

In a 39-day season, with 16 players can get to three players on Day 38 with TCs every three days and then one on day 38 (I think?). But we haven't had a 16-player season in forever - and I think that's partly why? A medevac or two and suddenly you don't have enough people left. So they've made 18/20 player seasons the standard, and for a while it worked because there seemed to be a run of seasons with at least one quit/medevac. But that's eased off recently so there are too many players at the end and need to do a bunch of back-to-back TCs. It's one of those rare cases where I'm willing to see that the producers are in a tight spot, not of their own making. I think the reason for bunching them at the end is simpler though - the less players there are, the less is going on. When you're down to the last 4 or so there's just not that much strategy to discuss (especially now), if you're getting on each others nerves (which you are, almost certainly) there's no-one else to go talk to, everyone's tired so conserving energy so no fun adventures, idols are done so no idol hunts. From a production point of view there's not that much interesting stuff to film, it's harder to craft a story because there aren't enough thread to tie together, and it's usually just not that interesting to watch. Outback went for 42 days and they had 3 days (and a whole episode) with just the F3 and it felt like the longest three days in the history of television. That said, I feel like a few of the final episodes recently have started with too many players, and just ended up being (maybe)RC/IC/TC/(maybe)RC/IC/TC/IC/TC/FTC and nothing else, and that's boring too.

Taking this to Past seasons chat because it's probably getting a bit off-topic here.

I don't either, but I'm pretty sure it's just for the 20-player seasons if there are no evacuations. They're always closer together over the last few days and eventually every day, but it varies how long for. Last season it was every three days then one days 36/37/38. Game Changers was weirdly all over the map, with 2 or 3 day gaps right the way through, then TCs Day 32/33/35/36/37/38. MvGx was every three days but then, yeah, 33/34/35/36/37/38. Kaoh Rong was, according to Wikipedia 32/34(evac)/37 - so five days without a TC, but they had 18 and lots of evacuations, from memory? Cambodia was again every 2/3 days earlier but then 35/36/37/38. WA was normal then days 35/37/38. Same with SJDS. Cagayan was Days 36/37/38. It seems to depend on the gimmick, number of players to start and evacs/quits. (This post brought to you by Wikipedia and just how little I want to get off my couch and cook dinner right now. Heh.)

Yep. You could fix the auction. It might take a couple of seasons, but you have one with no advantage, where it just ends and tough luck to anyone who didn't buy anything. Or you make the advantage a covered surprise item that goes up second that someone buys for $40. Or you hide it in a plate of food. Or you make it a parchment that turns out to be a disadvantage instead. The problem wasn't the auction, it's that it got too predictable.

It was Debbie. What they showed was the 'moment to strategise' that Jeff gives them. She dibsed the balance beam part of the challenge because she'd been a professional gymnast for ten years, then she completely blew it and had a tantrum about it later (although there's talk of timeline shenanigans with the tantrum). There was no schoolyard pick involved though - it was pre-merge.

From what I've picked up over the years, there's a whole lot of business around picks and challenges. Draw rocks for captains, captains each pick, then their first picks take a turn picking, then their picks take a turn, and so on until the teams are filled, and there's often some sort of rule about men picking women and women picking men to keep the teams even. THEN they go through the rules of the challenge with Jeff (and maybe the challenge team) and ask questions, and there's this whole thing where if one team asks a question they make sure the other team gets that information too so it's 100% fair. THEN they get their 'minute to strategise'. It all takes a long time and we only ever see bits of it if it affects the outcome - in recent seasons that has almost always been someone volunteering for something in the strategising and then being terrible at it. Would seeing the schoolyard pick be fun? Maybe, once or twice in a season, but a lot of times you can kind of work it out from looking at the teams, and I get the feeling the picks these days are more about perceived challenge strength than alliances anyway. They've all gotten too savvy about not giving things away so I doubt we'd learn much. I think if you ended up with a truly puzzling scenario (ie. an Ozzy/Joe-type player left unpicked) they'd show it. I kind of accept that when they whittle 3 days down into 43 minutes, a lot of that business-end-stuff will get cut, and while I personally know if people who've only just just discovered Survivor, I feel like 99% of the audience has been watching it for years and so production's attitude is 'eh, everyone's seen this before, skip to the challenge'.

This is 100% a possibly meaningless observation about last night's episode and contains no actual info but just in case...

It's not like he's been part of the gameplay so this is pretty much all he's there for at this point. +1. There's been a lot of 'there's a *blah*?' this season but I've actually found identifying everyone easier than I have for the past few. Less generic pretty people. Chelsea has barely spoken but she's almost always in group shots and she's quite striking and hard to miss, IMO. I think the below is based on a pretty well-known thing but just in case... Her hair was AWFUL at tribal. I couldn't stop looking at it. I kind of want to give Des the Tyra 'we were all rooting for you!' GIF for blowing up her own game so thoroughly, but while I did start off rooting for her she's been getting on my nerves the past few episodes. The fact that she's 21 makes a lot of sense to me - there's an immaturity there. I feel like she would play a better game in a few years. This isn't the *best* season of Survivor, but so far I actually really like it? There have been so many seasons recently where by this point the dominant alliance full of people I hate is 100% in control and it's a slow march to a winner I dislike, but this season is really up in the air, and I like most of the players that still have a shot. Kellyn is the only one I'd be annoyed with as a winner (of the people who have a shot, sorry Sebastian and Chelsea), and she does worry me - her 'I'm in control' speech tonight should have been a precurser to her ouster and that it wasn't makes me wonder if it was her winner's quote instead. Fingers crossed it's not.

Hmmm... I've gone looking and I can't find it either. Maybe it was just spec that because she looked much younger in her photo above that she could do it to avoid the Mom label. This. Something about him is just off. On a VERY shallow level I think part of it is his eyebrows - they seem oddly plucked (and more oddly, they seem MORE plucked on the island than they do in his publicity shots). But it's also everything else. He's difficult to look at.

I can't remember exactly but wasn't it Angela who was going to go in lying about her age - saying she was a lot younger than she was?

Wow. The men in these photos look the same but most of the women look completely different.

This was a great merge episode. I didn't mind all the tribe swaps as much as some people seemed to and I feel like they've mixed up all the original alliances enough so that - fingers crossed - we're not going to end up with Original-Naviti pagonging Original-Malolo. I know the girls were still pushing for it but I don't even feel like they were pushing very hard. I'm curious to see what happens next, and I'm very pleased that my favourites are mostly still in. And I'm glad it's mostly people I like with all the idols, but the fact that before tonights vote there were four hidden immunity idols in play, AND a legacy advantage, is... a bit much. That's too many, for my tastes. Now we're down to three and no legacy advantage, but even assuming no more get hidden and the ghost island advantages are shorter-term, if those three are good to F5 you could still end up with a Cirie situation. Chris. Chris... that he didn't play his idol is so ridiculous. It wasn't a blindside. He was clearly getting votes. It was only good for one more tribal. His nemesis played an idol. That idol get was so unlikely that if you believe in producer shenanigans at all (I'm on the fence), it has to be suspicious, and it was for nothing. I can just see the producers watching tribal yelling at the monitors about how much effort they'd gone to for him - "WE GOT YOU A BOAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! COME ON, DUDE!" - and there he was, throwing it all away. Wendell's vote was great. I loved the 'you're garbage.... at rapping. You're trash at rapping.' I've seen the odd winner-edit comment about him and it does seem interesting that we got so much of him this episode despite it not being about him. I like Libby, and I'm glad she's still there. She hasn't done a lot but I do feel like she's watching and thinking and has game. I am also glad that we seem to have moved on enough as a fandom that her having a hint of armpit hair is nowhere like the huge! drama! it has been for female players in seasons past. All up, still a good season. Somehow.