MissEwa

Yes! I didn't remember who she did it to but Ami's 'hi, I'm so glad we're playing together, look at my GIANT KNIFE wink wink' thing was just great. Poor Erik. He was so excited to be playing with the big kids...

I think it had zero to do with the character and Felice was just the Aaron Spelling stand-in. They may have tried to shoehorn some justification in there at various times but none of it very convincing.

Micronesia is one of my favourites - it's got so many great moments. One of my favourites - as Mean Girl as it is - is Parvati in the voting booth after Eric gives away immunity, just laughing so hard she can't vote. Nathalie was a little OTT but really interesting and I'd like to see her play again - watching the way Parvati dealt with her was fascinating. I don't love Parv as a person but she has a really good handle on that part of the game. I would have liked to see a Cirie/Parvati F2, just because I'd still kinda love to see what Cirie could do at FTC.

On the one hand, it's maybe unreasonable to expect people not to discuss something that it's very much human nature to discuss, but yeah... this is Survivor. They're playing for a lot of money and in return they agree to a bunch of rules. It's not Survivor-specific. Many workplaces have NDAs, doctors and lawyers etc. have confidentiality rules. It's easier to police in the game, I guess, partly because a) smaller environment, more cameras and b) players are still in with a chance to win so less likely to break those rules for fear of jeopardising their chances. For example, aside from the rumours about Nicaragua (and your thoughts on Romber), nobody's ever made a financial deal for F2/3, which is a MASSIVE no-no, and probably really tempting as a player. It's harder on Ponderosa because they're no longer under the threat of losing the million. But there are still penalties that can be applied - loss of the game fee they did get, no appearance at the reunion (and thus no fee), probably, depending on the size of the breach, damages set out in those textbook-sized contracts they sign. But yeah, 'I'm voting for Adam. You should vote for Adam' is one thing, 'Adam played a great game, didn't he? I don't know if you know this but he engineered Blah's ouster. Such a good move!' is another. You can ban ALL game talk, applying penalties if people break it, but I actually think sometimes that would make the FTC vote worse. In this Probstian Utopia of multiple blindsides every season, people get voted out and they're just like '...WTH?' and it's at Ponderosa that things get pieced together. I kinda like that. I wish we saw more of those moments where people are completely lost and people at Ponderosa explain what happened. But yeah, it a fine line between that and discussing who they want to win. This is probably getting a bit OT for S34 speculation though. I'm interested if the jury sequester is their big twist and if so, if it'll mean... anything. Ponderosa is a bit of a niche thing anyway, isn't it? 90% of viewers wouldn't know or care.

I dislike both those people but that sounds adorable. It would be awesome to get more of this kind of Ponderosa footage - I liked back when each person got 3 clips, where one was a 'directly after/intro to ponderosa/maybe game talk' and the rest were more fun group times.

As far as I understand it (or did), they're not supposed to discuss their intended votes at all while they're in Ponderosa, but that doesn't mean they don't, or that they don't talk about the remaining players in a way where it's pretty obvious. I'm not sure how banning all game talk would work, given they're not in a house, as such, but given run of a resort, and the (very understandable) need to decompress when they get out. I do feel like the game-talk has become a much bigger thing in recent ponderosas, though. Remember when they went on outings and started rock bands? That said, I don't watch US BB (Australian BB is a public vote for the winner so no jury) so I don't know how they make it work. I'd be curious to see them try.

That's what I thought was meant by jury sequester. My only thought is how boring it would be for the jury members, especially early ones. It's also weird to do it on an all-star season where they all already know each other and have pre-existing alliances and probably FTC voting deals.

I know the styling for Andrea was always terrible, and always made her look muuuuch older than she was supposed to be, but a close-up of her "20 year old" hands? Whose idea was that? Speaking of age though, I hate this episode but at least this is the kind of thing a bunch of 20-year-olds would do, unlike running nightclubs and working on screenplays with 40-somethings. I hate time jumps but I do kind of wish 90210 had just done one - these people look and act so much older than they're supposed to be. Kelly's whole rant about how all men cheat is one of the main things I remember from this episode. Didn't she cheat on Dylan with John Sears? And that whole drunken baby-voice thing was so hard to listen to. I miss fun Kelly.

I'm paraphrasing a (completely non-Survivor-related, I think) tweet here but: the 'participation trophy' - as actual thing and as metaphor - is an irritating thing to throw at millennials because 'participation trophies' were actually more about appeasing their boomer parents. I'm sure there are millennial that have taken on that everybody-deserves-a-prize mentality, but they're not responsible for it's existence. (I'm GenX so obviously completely blameless and also perfect. Heh.)

Maybe. Or maybe Ken decided he can't trust her and decides to boot her, with help from Bret (who dislikes her but also didn't think Adam was a massive threat) and possibly Adam (who would just be glad it wasn't him) - that was her logic, anyway. I don't think Hannah was the best player ever. She's one of my favourites, from a personality POV, but she's not a mastermind. IMO her game, and her motivations, were solid, but ultimately not right for the jury she was facing. It happens. I just wish it hadn't been a wash (and yes, I get why it was...)

Yep, but that one was so tediously obvious it felt like it couldn't possibly be a winners edit, until that point at F7 where you realised it really couldn't be anybody else. I felt similarly about Tyson the following season - he got so much screen time throughout that I was sure it had to be a fake-out, until about that same point (maybe later - they spent a little bit of time on Ciera) when everyone left was either invisible or a buffoon.

I love Val but that off-the-shoulder/sheer tights/mid-height heel combo is not her friend. Although still 10000 times better that whatever is going on with Donna's hair in those PPAD scenes. It looks like Steve's curls mated with David's spider-leg bangs in a bottle of peroxide. Yikes!

I think a big problem with the Legacy Advantage is that we never had any of it explained to us. The edit wanted to surprise us with it at TC and so we never got a talking ahead about how it actually worked (and it going to Ken, who isn't exactly a strategic or narrative gem didn't help). Was it for that TC only? Was it transferrable? Was it supposed to stay a secret or could he have told people? I hoped for (but didn't dare expect) a Kim win and am still confused by Michele, but somehow picked Sophie halfway through the first episode. The only other winner I've picked that early was Denise (and I only 50% picked her - I knew when they showed her and Malcolm forming an alliance not long into Ep1 that one of them would win, but I wasn't sure which). I don't think there's such a thing as a 'winners edit' as such, but looking back you do quite often get those little scenes that I don't think you wouldn't get otherwise. As much as I was pulling for a Hannah win there was a bonus clip of her at one point this season where she was talking to Ken (not the sunrise one) and then had a confessional about how she was working to quietly gather the quirky oddball players onto her side, and I remembered thinking that she obviously didn't win because if she had that would have made the episode.

Curiously, Hannah's exit interviews suggest the opposite - that she did bond with people and that's why they were more upset when she voted them out. She's got a pretty good view of her own game, I thought (and some of the potential gender issues involved). http://parade.com/532281/joshwigler/survivor-hannah-shapiro/ http://my.xfinity.com/blogs/tv/2016/12/15/survivor-millennials-vs-gen-x-finalist-hannah-thought-strong-woman-like-jessica-get-targeted/ And funny... Holmes: Did you think your objectification of men was going to help you with the jury? Shapiro: I think it helps me every day. ETA. snap @peachmangosteen

Speaking of hair, Andrea certainly has a thing for the floof. Peter may not quite have the bishop loaf of Gil Myers but his hair is the floofy equal of that RA she lost her virginity to. She probably looks at Jesse's balding head some nights and just cries (for that and many other reasons...)

I think it depends on what kind of 'well-liked'. If you're well-liked as a person, generally, yes. But if you're well-liked as a confidant or a support person or - worst of all - a mother figure, then it's not so simple.

This is exactly me @peachmangosteen - I like Adam a lot. Before the finale he was just behind Hannah as my hope to win, and I thought I'd be really thrilled with his win. I was actually surprised at how annoyed I was.

It's possibly getting a little off-topic, but wasn't a huge part of Sandra's Heroes vs Villains FTC argument that she tried to get Russell out and the rest of them didn't help her and that's why they all lost? I think mostly you don't get points for trying but in that case Sandra definitely did. The thing that confuses me is that if Adam did go to Ken and he is actually the person responsible for flipping him, like the jury thinks and Adam claims, why didn't we see any evidence of it? I know we only see a bit of what happens but why did we specifically get shown Hannah telling Adam to leave it to her, and Hannah talking to Ken, and setting it up so that it definitely looks like Hannah was responsible, and then having Chris credit Adam for it at FTC? It's weird, and if that's not how it actually went down, it seems to be very deliberate. I can't help thinking it's either 1) they wanted to humiliate Hannah, showing her as this delusional ditz who thinks she's running the game but really isn't - since she never gets voted out, this is her 'I've got all the power!' downfall episode, or 2) when Adam talked to Ken, he told him about his mother (which he's said he did in interviews, so this is likely), and not in a bonding-moment way like he did with Jay, but in a gameplay way that the audience would find gross, and they didn't show it to preserve his edit.

Actual LOL. This is the best comment ever. I was shipping them until Ken did that whole thing with Will and then I realised Hannah's too good for him. I actually love how in that clip of them watching the sunrise he's saying something about the sun not hurting their eyes and she's like 'yeah, you said that'.

Right? The last really bro-y jock to win was... JT? And even then, he wasn't. Tyson? Douchey but not really jocky. Jeremy and Mike *might* fit that bill very superficially but only if you didn't actually watch their seasons. It's similar to arguments made a lot that 'women don't win', when the break-up of winners is only marginally tilted towards men. Women have to play differently to men to win (IMO), but they still do, regularly. I actually really liked this season but looking back it was one of the worst for women - most of them voted off pretty much right away, one out on rocks (which was really just bad luck), the last two seen as goats and the one who made the finale having her whole game reduced at the reunion to 'isn't it funny how you flirted with the hot guy lol!' ETA. I'll put my hand up as another fan of Guatemala. And a big fan of Danni.

I thought going into the finale I'd be fine with anyone but Bret, but man, I was disappointed by the result. I've slept on it now and I'm less disappointed but I'm still annoyed. I know Hannah didn't play a flawless game but I think she played a much better game than she was given credit for, and I think she deserved at least a few votes. This is a nice fairytale win but it's not a gameplay win - which I guess is fine. I've always said that the great thing about Survivor is that you not only have to get to the end but then you have to convince the people you voted out to give you a million bucks, and Adam did that and Hannah didn't, so well played, Adam. Hannah got herself to the end by playing herself up as the goat, and taking out other goats, and that's one way to do it but unfortunately once you convince everyone you're a goat it's hard to get them to decide you're not - even if they kind of know, they're annoyed that they fell for it. I was amazed at f4 that her name didn't come up at all between David and Adam. David would have been able to get Ken to vote out Hannah and I'm pretty sure he knew that, and Adam did too. I think maybe she should have talked that up at FTC - that while she was on the chopping block at 10 and 9, her name didn't come up again after that and that was by design. But honestly... I don't think that jury were ever going to give her the win. (I don't know that it applies here, on Hannah "interrupting": I don't know if there have been widespread studies but there are cases that show that in situations like this, women get perceived as interrupting more often even if they haven't. A year or so ago someone sat down with an Australian panel show where one particular female panelist was accused of rudeness and constant interrupting and found she'd actually interrupted others less often then some of the men, but even other women felt like they'd heard her interrupting more.) Can we ban trail attorneys from asking FTC questions? They're always so pompous and 'look how smart I am' and in this case... wrong. And Zeke and Sunday's questions almost felt like production prompts. 'Hey, mention the theme!' 'Hey, next season is all about 'game changers', mention the evolution of the game!' Jay got played by the fake idol, and he lost himself that immunity challenge, and he took it all with such good humour. I've disliked him at various points during the game but he actually seems like a really good guy. I wouldn't mind seeing him again. Bret, on the other hand, shut up. Especially about the 'crazies'. Ugh. The worst thing though? That at the reunion Hannah's entire game and growth arc was reduced to 'the awkward girl who flirted with Ken hahahahaha as if!' Shut up show. Next season? The theme seems like a reach. Caleb changed the game by... dehydrating and nearly dying?

I definitely see this for "mother figures", but not necessarily all mothers, I think @KimberStormer. It's less about whether or not they actually have kids and more about how they position themselves in the tribe, but yeah, it's something that probably most affects that particular demographic. I think (and this varies among the different examples) it's partly bitterness - these type of players inspire a lot of trust and when they break it it probably hurts worse (Dawn is a prime example of this) - and partly some pre-existing biases about "moms" being cheery and helpful but not overly bright (see the way putting 'Mommy' in front of things has become a shorthand insult). The Denises and Sandras of Survivor I think deliberately avoided being seen as "moms" to try to work around that. I wasn't a fan of Dawn or Lisa for other reasons and I think in part their downfalls were down to their own play but they definitely went with the "mom" thing stacked against them.

Sandra is a mother - I assumed she was while she was on Survivor too? But neither she nor Denise ever played a 'mother card' (bringing up their kids and acting as though being a mother made them more deserving or somehow better people). I felt like someone like Dawn mostly got a lot of grief over it because she did.

I'm pretty sure I had the satin shirt in ruby red and royal blue, at various points. And then later on red velvet jeans. The storyline is so boring but Peter's expression in that first visual aid made me laugh for a long, long time.

Fair enough. I think this might be one where opinion is actually fairly evenly divided but passionate on both sides and so everyone feels like their opinion is the UO? I remember a lot of talk about how she only won because Colton quit and how she was boring and a robot and was playing against idiots etc, which made it feel unpopular to like her. Obviously your mileage may (and does) vary.