snoopythecat

I'm mostly a lurker in these parts, but I follow and thoroughly enjoy the comments here every single season. My take on that TH has always been that Russell did believe he had won his first season, and that two different versions of that TH were recorded. Here's my reasoning. Even though we know that the F3 usually know the outcome based on the jury's comments at FTC, they are not supposed to officially know who won. As such, I can envision the unseen cameraman saying, "Since we don't know the outcome of last season yet, we're going to to two takes on this one. The first time, I want you to answer with the assumption that you won. The second time, I want you to answer with the assumption that you lost." Then, when the show was edited, the take that corresponded to the actual outcome was used, and somewhere in the Land of Discarded Survivor Footage is a clip of Russell beating his chest and crowing about his victory. I can't recall seeing this possibility mentioned here before, so I apologize if this theory has already been discussed and dismissed and I missed it.

It's worth noting that, according to Probst (via Dalton Ross/EW), they had the cast picked out before they came up with the theme for the season. So I'm guessing each tribe will have one or two people who fit the stereotypes (middle management asshole types, salt-of-the-earth blue-collar types, annoying free-spirit-at-the-top-of-their-lungs types), and the rest will have been shoehorned into the tribe with some specious reasoning on the part of the producers.

Sandra did benefit from a lot of luck. She was out of the loop when Rupert was blindsided in first season, but it was to her advantage that he was booted without any blood on her hands. She was also lucky that poor Christa got blamed for the fish. There's also Parvati's double idol play in HvV that handed the Villains control of the game, and I agree with others that she was damn lucky her efforts to remove Russell from the game were unsuccessful. But one thing Sandra does well is make the most of her luck. Her Survivor philosophy seems to be that the best offense is a good defense, and that in order to win at the end, you have to avoid being voted out before the end.

Probst has said that the best Survivor seasons tend to be the ones where they have their cast in place first and then choose the theme for the season. But in earlier seasons, including Pearl Islands, the theme was often inspired by the locale chosen. It makes me wonder whether they picked the cast first and the theme was inspired by Rupert's look, or they already had a pirate theme planned and then somebody in casting saw Rupert's audition video and said, "Jackpot! It's Blackbeard in tie-dye!"

I submit Andrea's play in Caramoan as evidence that Rob's tribe was not, in fact, populated entirely by mindless groupies. I found Jerri way more likable in HvV than in Australia (haven't seen all of All-Stars). I think we can conclude that this was not merely a trick of editing, because Colby of all people expressed a similar sentiment. I hated Coach in Tocantins, liked him better in HvV, then hated him again in South Pacific. I liked Ozzy until he acted like an entitled brat after Parvati and Cirie decided they actually wanted to win the game rather than just handing it to Ozzy. Rupert has become increasingly annoying with each appearance. Malcolm came off much better in his first appearance than his second. This could be partly due to the toll back-to-back seasons took on him, but even he admitted he was surprised at the positive edit he got in Philippines. Being on the underdog tribe that season benefitted him in that regard, much as I believe it benefitted Spencer (who was NOT at all likable in pre season interviews) in Cagayan. ETA: Autocorrect issues

Kimber, it's interesting that you mention preferring big, bold moves, because I know you also love Kim -- whose game I'd classify as coolly rational rather than than big and bold. What is it about Kim's game that you loved? (I personally love both types of play, although I hate the bloviating, self-aggrandizing confessionals that often accompany the big and bold style.) One thing I loved about about HvV was the way the producers messed with the players' heads by openly labeling them "Heroes" and "Villains." As a result the Heroes felt pressure to play "heroically," while the Villains' label freed them to play in a more underhanded manner. However, the Heroes saw themselves as "better" than the Villains and automatically more deserving of the win; therefore, as others have noted, they were never going to give the money to a Villain unless they only had Villains from whom to choose. I've often wondered how the season would have played out had the producers informed us the viewers of the theme but never let on to the players themselves that they were being classified as Heroes and Villains. ETA: Damn you, autocorrect!

In response to ToastNBacon, Probst made a comment to Dalton Ross (of Entertainment Weekly) to the effect that female contestants just aren't as interesting as male contestants, and that's why returning players (on seasons where there are only 2 or 3 returnees) are usually male. In addition, the contestants he seems the most excited about are more often than not alpha males like Colby, Tom Westman, James, JT, and Malcolm, and especially those who play aggressively, like Rob and Russell. Conversely, when he's calling out a contestant for sucking at a challenge, it's almost always a female. But I think the gender problem on Survivor is bigger than Probst. There are several factors in play here. 1) The perception that brute strength = challenge prowess means that women are far more likely to be perceived as challenge liabilities. No matter how many challenges end with a puzzle that essentially negates the physical portion, no matter how many challenges actually favor people with smaller feet or better balance or even smaller stature (remember the challenge in Pearl Islands where each team had to hoist their smallest player in a sling and hold her there as long as possible?), the perception is ingrained that the alpha males must be kept around in the tribal phase for challenges. This means jackasses like Phillip are seen as annoying but still having some value to the tribe, while eccentric, grating female personalities like Wanda in Palau and Sandy in Tocantins are quickly booted. I blame Colby's immunity run in Australia for this perception. 2) We all know the producers load the cast with eye candy and then throw in a few regular-looking, "relatable" people. But let's examine how "eye candy" is defined in each gender. Male eye candy is usually buff and well-proportioned with a nice six-pack -- traits that are also likely to be seen as challenge assets. But female eye candy is usually skinny, waif-like, and often surgically top-heavy -- traits that usually are perceived as challenge liabilities.T 3) Many (not all) pretty or "hot" girls (particularly those confident enough in their appearance to go on TV in a bikini), are socialized to believe that their number one job in life is to look pretty, and that they can use their looks to manipulate men into doing things for them. This leads to the very common complaint that the girls in a given tribe are lazy and never help out around camp. (In other words, part of the problem is the type of women the producers prefer to cast.) Morgan in Cagayan was kind of a fascinating character for the fact that she pretty much came out and said she was accustomed to using her looks to get her own way. I would venture that many female players do this, but most of them do it without Morgan's level of self-awareness. 4) Studies have shown that men tend to be bigger risk-takers, while women are more likely to be risk averse. This suggests that men are more likely to make the kind of big, flashy moves that make for great TV. Other studies have shown that men are more likely to have an abundance of confidence in their abilities, even when unjustified, while women are more likely to be lacking in confidence. In Survivor, this may mean that men are more likely to supplement their flashy moves with the kind of cocky confessionals the producers love. (See Rob, Russell, Tony.) (Please note that the above is all my own speculation on the topic, and I could be wrong about any and all of it.)

Ian is gay? I assumed he was straight, because his interactions with Katie suggested to me that he was attracted to her and she used that to manipulate him. Or did you mean Coby? I kind of thought Coby alienated himself from most of his tribe and sealed his own fate. He kind of reminds me of Reed, if Reed had been playing with a more competent group of players that didn't include his boyfriend. The impression I got from Stephen is that, like most players, he brought his own baggage to the game. In his case, I suspect his baggage was that, as a skinny, bookish, unathletic nerd, he'd spent most of his life feeling inferior to (and perhaps being bullied by) strapping, athletic, charming guys like JT -- and that he had a kind of Wayne's World/"I'm not worthy!" reaction when JT accepted him as a closer friend and ally. This was decidedly NOT conducive to arguing with any real conviction that he deserved the million dollars more than JT. All speculation on my part, of course, but it seems to be the subtext in the narrative presented to us my the editing.

I think my liking Stephen is due to my fondness for underdogs. I was angry that he basically did all the strategic heavy lifting, yet somehow JT got all the credit. Debbie even said in one of her postmortem interviews that she was shocked watching the show and seeing how much of the strategy came from Stephen, because they had all thought JT was the mastermind. The way everyone that season was falling all over themselves to hand the game to JT made me want to vomit. Hell, it was obvious at FTC that even Stephen himself was infatuated and didn't think he deserved the win over JT. I.hate to admit it, but part of my INTENSE distaste for JT has to do with geopolitical prejudices and personal baggage. I'm not proud of it, but as a lesbian, I was inherently distrustful of someone who identified so strongly as a good ole Southern boy -- because of how frequently homophobia spoke with a Southern accent, especially back in 2008 before the tide really turned in America. It's worth noting that there have been a lot of Southerners on Survivor, and I haven't had the same intensely negative reaction to all of them that I had to JT. Some, like Natalie White, I liked quite a lot. I think what bugged me with JT was that the very quality that I found off-putting -- the Southern charm -- was what most people without my baggage just looooooooved about him. I generally am not a huge fan of overdogs to begin with. I'm wary of alpha males (again, because of personal baggage). Both of these are a large part of why I'm on the fence about Tony and Rob. And I also HATE any situation where one person gets the credit for another person's work. Oddly, I do like Tom Westman, despite his being both an alpha male and an overdog. Again, I think geopolitical prejudices play a role -- I live 25 miles from NYC, and an Irish firefighter from New York is a familiar, comforting character type to me, while a cattle rancher from Alabama is a character type with which I have no personal familiarity to draw from and mostly negative impressions from the media. I sincerely apologize if this offends anyone, especially anyone from JT's part of the country. As I said, I'm not proud of my own prejudices, and I am working on them. (Off the top of my head, I like Natalie White, I like Tina, I mostly like Keith, and I liked Jane until she showed herself to be the female Rupert. And my dislike of Russell and Shannon is due to their individual personalities, but where they're from.) But I think we all bring our own personal baggage to our interpretation of both the players and the game.

These are based only on the seasons I've seen in their entirety. Favorites: Kim, Sandra, Natalie A., Parvati, Tom, Ian, Stephen, Cirie, Andrea, Cochran. Least Favorites: RUSSELL, Brandon, Phillip, Coach, Tyson, Corinne, Ben (Samoa), Shannon (Nicaragua), NaOnka, Andrew Savage, John Rocker, Rupert, Shemar, Fairplay, and -- of course -- Colton. On the Fence: Rob, Penner, Tony, Ami, Hatch, Tarzan, Stephenie (because I've heard she morphed into a bitch in Guatemala), Ozzy (a marvel to watch competing in challenges or scaling a coconut tree; strategizing and socializing, not so much). People I like that most people seem to dislike: Sugar, Bob, Twila, most of the cast of One World (except for Colton, Troyzan, Matt, Mike, and Alicia). Lill gets a sympathy like from me due to the way she was treated by her tribe early on (and I feel she was screwed over by the producers essentially casting her in the role of the Scout leader who would have to -- gasp! -- lie to people in order to play the game). I also was fine with the stunt casting of Jimmy Johnson and Lisa Whelchel because, unlike Rocker, they were both legitimate fans of the game, and they were reasonably likable during their seasons. And I liked the Twinnies even on TAR (except for the money-stealing, which I like to think is something they would only ever do in a competition for a million dollars and not in their everyday lives). People I dislike that most people seem to like: JT (he's always rubbed me the wrong way, and his parting comment on HvV -- "Never, ever trust a woman," after getting screwed over by the decidedly not-female Russell -- confirmed my opinion of him), Malcolm (even he admits he was surprised at the positive edit he got in his first season), Spencer (I might feel differently if I hadn't read his bio on the CBS website), Eddie (any guy who so clearly evaluates women solely by how "hot" they are is dead to me), Jim Rice (I HATED the way the Savaii tribe treated Cochran and didn't blame him one bit for flipping on them -- and Jim was the worst offender in my opinion, because he, like Cochran, knew all too well what it felt like to be excluded from the cool kids table and therefore should have had more empathy for Cochran).

Both these ideas are great, and I'd love to see them again, but they've both been tried in some form before: In Palau, there was a reward challenge (won by Koror) that allowed the winning tribe to observe the losing tribe's TC and assign immunity to one member of the opposing tribe based on their observations. It was obvious from the discussion at TC that Ibrehem was on the chopping block because of his poor challenge performance, so Koror granted him immunity and Angie was voted out instead. In One World, where tribes were allowed to mingle pre-merge, there was a HII hidden at each tribe's camp that the finder was to give to a member of the opposing tribe. Sabrina found the Salani idol and gave it to Colton, who declined to pass it on to anyone when he was quitevaced. (The Manono idol was never passed from one tribe to the other; Kim sneaked over to the Manono beach while they were away and found the idol, which she knew would be designated for a member of Salani.)