Eolivet

I know Yul was a huge get, but when I saw Amber, I screamed. I followed casting on this season for weeks, leaving my happy home here to venture into unfriendly territory, and she wasn't on a single person's radar. Not one. Everyone else was at least mentioned. She was never even considered. So, I consider this probably the biggest casting coup of the season. Arguably before Boston Rob became this outsized legendary figure, "Rob and Amber" (as a unit) were the bigger story. They are such a massive part of early Survivor history, and in a season of recency bias to the extreme, I love that Amber is on again. I know Ethan is technically from an earlier season, but short of getting Richard Hatch or Rupert, I think nobody else exemplifies the essence of early Survivor, at least from a pop culture perspective, than "Rob-and-Amber." Go, Amber.

Fascinating that unlike the newbie seasons, the CBS bios do not contain players' ages. Survivor Pravda's (a.k.a. Entertainment Weekly) coverage does, however. Wonder whose idea that was.

Unpopular opinion? I think Nick is the best Survivor winner of the 30s. He was social, strategic and competitive. He had many strong (named!) alliances, was well-liked by both Davids and Goliaths, devised the brilliant minority vote split to boot John, was the first person to successfully play a vote steal, won three immunities to save himself and gave one of the best final tribal council speeches in my recent memory (when he compared himself to David against three Goliaths). If there is such a thing as a "five-tool player" in Survivor, Nick is it., and I cannot wait to see what he does this season.

Bringing this over from Michele's thread, as it had little to do with her: I remember this was after the very obvious Jeremy winner's edit in Second Chances, when the editors said they were going to try to be "less obvious" about who won. In the next three seasons, I thought the winners (Michele, Adam and Sarah) were underedited compared to ... well, someone who didn't win (Aubry, David Wright and Brad Culpepper), which was annoying. I don't want to be fooled, just show me who won and why. If they dominated the season, show me that. This "pull the wool over your eyes" editing was stupid and I'm glad they got away from it when they could (even if it was with freaking Ben). My feeling was it was not only Adam, but Jeremy: two out of three seasons with unanimous winners who ostensibly won unanimously because they dropped a personal bombshell at final tribal council, shocking everyone. Jeremy revealing his wife was pregnant seemed to have a similar impact on the jury (and a similar result) as Adam crying over his mom. (I do believe the one swipe the show took at Adam was in David vs Goliath, when Nick revealed his mom had died and was emotional about it on the first night, and one of the Davids was like, "Dude, you should've saved that for the end.")

So many things about this bio are ... interesting. Completely concealing that he's involved in this shady poker Twitch channel operating out of the Virgin Islands. I don't hate him either, but independent of his personal tragedy, I think he was able to give off this "such a nice young man" vibe to the Gen Xers (a direct contrast to many of the more outspoken millennials), which I doubt will work on these fellow winners. If he tries the same thing, I think he may come off as fake. I do agree about people who take dozens of the same photo, however.

Is it my imagination or is this iteration of Doctor Who ... talkier than normal? There were three separate subplots, each of which was resolved by a monologue. The Master monologuing his plan to the Doctor, Barton monologuing his plan, the Doctor monologuing the solution. The Companions (plus two) were there to stand there and look shocked. And then, to boot ... what's wrong with Gallifrey is explained not by the Doctor investigating the planet, but ... another monologue! I feel like there's a lot of action, but the action isn't part of the climax, the climax is always ... talking. I get that the Doctor can talk her way out of things, but this wasn't talking her way out -- this was explaining what she did offscreen. I'm not saying I want more fighting, but I want a story told in a way that's not so complicated that you don't have to info-dump it all at the end, in the guise of a solution. I want to not go from "what the heck is going on?!" for the first hour to getting all the answers in the last five minutes. And I feel like the show hasn't always been this way. But when it's twenty minutes left and none of the subplots are resolved and the Companions and the Doctor are still separated and the bad guys are still alive, to have all of them end with an explanation of the action seemed pretty anticlimactic.

Wow, color me shocked. I agree with nearly everyone else about Alex deserving to at least be there, and ugh, Marissa got on my last nerve in these episodes. And I hate that she Amazing Race-d her way into the finale (i.e., she never came in last). By the time we get to the semifinals, I think overall season performance should be taken into account. I wasn't rooting for Alex (I preferred Dana, whose flavors seemed yummy), but the guy won star baker how many times? And that counted for nothing? But if this finale was the Amazing Race, Brother Andrew outsprinted Dana to the mat in a foot race while Marissa was still stuck in Alaska performing a Detour.

I disagree. I had so much second-hand embarrassment for everyone involved (and I hate celebrity culture). When you come to work, you don't expect to hear about your personal life, even if it's happy. It sort of reminded me of the "George Clooney's wife works on blah-blah-blah" headline, when she's an internationally renowned lawyer. Karlie is the host and a judge, and the challenge was a work event. Who she's married to isn't relevant. The closest reality TV analogy I can think of is when a Big Brother contestant (way back in the day) called the host, Julie Chen, "Mrs. Moonves." Which is a really bad analogy, because she prominently embraces that name now, but before, it had an air of "you are who you're married to." And on Big Brother, her role wasn't Les Moonves' wife, she was the host of the show. Just like on Project Runway, Karlie Kloss' role isn't marrying into the Kushner family, but being the host of the show. If women build careers outside of their marriage that have nothing to do with their husbands, don't bring their husbands into it, that's my view.

I want to say this is more recent than that ... S36 or S37. Before that, it seemed to be "underwear for the first half of the game, then they got bathing suits." (I remember this acutely in S35, when Ryan went from unfortunate red boxer briefs to pink trunks). Did they get bathing suits on Ghost Island? I have a vague recollection of Wendell in some kind of blue boxer briefs for the entirety of the show ... maybe? But I feel like some of the women had bikinis? I'm pretty sure they didn't have bathing suits in S37, because I believe Alec was the first dude to have the "loud patterned boxer briefs" the entire time (that they brought back for Gavin in S38, and now every guy this past season), and he was a post-merge boot. I would say somewhere between S36 and S37, they stopped giving them bathing suits and I have no idea why. Did someone get some kind of infection? I'm not sure I want to know. But I thought "underwear until merge, bathing suits after merge" was a good compromise.

I feel like Alex coasts on the technical, and his flavors are inconsistent, but Dana makes the better food. I also like Brother Andrew (for third place). He's consistent, calm and just works. I don't like Marissa, she seems to whine a lot and has had more ups and downs. I hope we're being set up for a well-earned Dana win, but we'll see if it's a predictable Alex win. I'm pulling for her -- all her food looks and sounds yummy.

When I explained what happened to my 6 year-old son, and that you don't touch girls whenever you feel like it, he replied, "Our teacher says: keep your hands to yourself." Keep your hands to yourself. It's so simple, only a kindergartener could do it. And yet, that childhood lesson somehow escaped a 48 year-old man. Sad.

My theory is they're still there, but they are doing them with the contestants still there on the runway. That way, the contestants have to stand by their work and answer questions about it, as opposed to it being done "behind their back." While it makes for less snarky viewing, if the contestants are really being called out for shoddy construction and not just "wow, this has shoddy construction" (once they've left the room), I feel like that's an improvement. I also wish they'd show it, but my theory is they've moved it, not that it's gone entirely. Tyler said something about being "roasted like a Christmas ham," and while we saw him receiving some harsher critiques, that would fit more into an in-depth examination of his dress while he was standing there. (Also, then the contestants know that the judges are scrutinizing their work if they send down unfinished hems or sloppy threads -- they're held accountable. As opposed to the contestants who were talked about behind their back, and then ... went back and did the same thing next week).

My massively unpopular opinion: Dayoung should've been sent home. By saying she was going to continue, she put the judges in an impossible situation (especially given how everybody pitched in and helped). There was no way her dress was going to land her in the bottom. They would've looked horrible and heartless after she "bravely" battled back from illness. But she missed a day. She missed hearing what the challenge was, doing the sketch, going shopping. Yeah, it was a 2-day challenge and she was lucky she had contestants to help her, but her garment was likely the simplest out of all the designers, and yet, the judges did their best "Sandra Bullock in that Netflix movie" blindfolded impersonation. Victoria, who yes, made a bad soggy diaper and an unlined cape-whatever thing, still did more work and made more pieces than Dayoung. Even if they were bad pieces, she worked within the parameters of the challenge. She didn't get to take a day off for recovery. I think Survivor rules (not Big Brother ones) should apply to Project Runway. Living within the parameters of the challenge is part of the show. Once you step out of those parameters, you're no longer qualified to be there. Miss a day of work, you go home. Dayoung had the ambulance called on her behalf. She missed a whole day, had her teammates help her, and then put the judges in an impossible situation. Someone (including herself) should've made the decision to pull her from the show.

Here's another theory, and this sort of coincides around about the mid-30s, and wouldn't necessarily have to be associated with fire-making. I call it ... the "growing up super-fan" movement. Because Survivor premiered in 2000, an entire generation of "growing up super-fans" came of age with the show, and are now competing as players. But what separated them from earlier Survivor winners is they had watched Survivor in their formative years, and had likely sought out Survivor information on the Internet (given their younger ages). And I think Survivor super-fans, or young Survivor super-fans, are more likely to be men. Men are more likely to frequent those subreddits and listen to those podcasts and read up on Survivor, and translate that into good game play (Angelina had done all that, but she never got the nuances. This season, Lauren highlighted how she'd been watching for "18 years," and we see where that got her.) I always thought Millennials vs Gen X was when the "growing up super-fan" movement went mainstream, and showed it did not have to eat your whole story (like it did for Cochran, the earliest adopter, and Spencer afterwards -- neither of whom won on the first try). And more importantly, that knowing Survivor could be a part of your winning strategy without being your entire strategy. Adam's main story was not "I eat, sleep and breathe Survivor," (though he did) but his tragic backstory. I don't remember Ben's Survivor background, but I believe Wendell and definitely Nick were big fans whose Survivor fandom was barely a blip on the radar. And I think both used Survivor knowledge to help them win Survivor. Tommy was clearly part of this "growing up super-fan" movement, as well. So, that could explain the streak of male winners. Whereas before, the skills to win Survivor were more broad-based, now the #1 skill you need to win Survivor ... is knowing Survivor. And that these "growing up super-fan" young men, for whatever reason, simply know more about Survivor and are able to put that knowledge into practice. I still wish they would kill the fire-making with ... well ... fire.

While Rottweiler had my favorite performance of the season ("Someone You Loved"), Fox had the overall stronger body of work, so I was happy to see him win. What I found particularly interesting is when Rottweiler was revealed to be Chris Daughtry, the audience seemed more into it than the judges. The judges gave him all this praise during their guesses and then when it got to the reveal, it was like, "oh, it's ... that guy? Huh." I kind of thought it was rude, but I guess we shouldn't be expecting much from the judges. But the show is always more interesting when the judges can't guess (nothing will ever top the disbelief/joy/shock at Monster's unmasking last year). So it took some of the magic away from the unmasking when 2 out of 4 judges guessed the winner, for me. I didn't mind the panel last year, but Ken's shtick went way too over-the-top and grated on me this year. "I know exactly who this is!" followed by making yourself look stupid, isn't a great catchphrase, Ken. I'll be back for the next season, but I found this season much longer than the first one (maybe because the concept wasn't as fresh). Had to watch it on On Demand, so I had the stupid "Road to the Final Mask" special on, and I'd completely forgotten the existence of some of those masks. Yikes. (Also note to future contestants: don't be a bug. Those costumes are always creepy and they never win.)

AHAHAHAHAHAHA, I crack myself up. Anyway, at the risk of willing this into existence, as I apparently willed Survivor 40 into existence ... I don't want to see a single person from season 39 back on another season. Not Janet, not Elaine, not Jamal, not Kellee, not anybody else. They are all fruit of the poisonous tree that is this tainted season and I have no desire to see any of them ever again.

But has the number of idols significantly increased since S35? I'd argue no. What is it about S35-S39 that has produced an unprecedented streak of male winners? Fire-making is the only variable that's changed. And it is more of a male skill, and in three out of five cases, a king-maker. Someone sees somebody else make fire, it's impressive. It garners votes. I'd argue with fire-making, the focus has shifted from "I need to get to the end with people I can beat" to "I need to keep people around who will take me to the end." When F4 was a vote, there was no "taking to the end." Fire-making encourages more passive play, so you keep your (mostly male) friends around, because they'll "take you to the end." Instead of "gee, I love my friends, but I'd really like to win, so goodbye, friend, I can't beat you." Now you can't get rid of that friend, because what if the next person doesn't take you to the end? And people who are sort of lazy have "take me to the end" as a viable strategy. The gameplay stops, and it's only those with their foot on the gas the whole time (generally men, who've been systematically weeding out the strong women) who this benefits. (Janet, who yes, went home on Dean's coin flip trip, should've been thinking she couldn't beat Tommy instead of "Tommy and Mommy, so cute!" Playing for herself, not herself and "the guy who would take her if he won.") Without fire-making, I'd argue Dom and Wendell turn on each other a lot faster. I'd argue some consensus of women goes, "You know who we really need to take out? Tommy." But fire-making means if you're friends with the threat to win, you keep him around, because he'll take you. That's why we've had all these male winners in a row, and why three of them have made fire. Because when you're trying to enumerate everything you've done over the course of 39 days, and the jury is stuck on "ooh, fire, pretty, wow," unless you have a Nick Wilson-type story, they're going to reward that man. And they have, 80% of the time. So, yeah, Jeff Probst -- I know you love the "ooh ahh" spectacle of fire-making at F4 because it makes good TV, but it's made for terrible Survivor. And I think we'd all survive just fine if F4 went back to being a (somewhat predictable) vote.

Cough, fire-making. It's the fire-making. That is the only thing that's changed in five years notably from the previous five. Look at the 30s, which had a much more even-keeled gender distribution prior to 35: man (30) man (31) woman (32) man (33) woman (34). Three-two. Not terrible. So, it's not the 30s that are responsible for this, it's the fire-making. Knock out fire-making and at least one of those male winners likely becomes a woman, maybe two. Because there were lots of idols and advantages in the seasons Michele and Sarah won, and they still managed to win. Why? No fire-making at F4. But production will never admit that fire-making has become a virtual guarantee of a male winner, because as others, notably @peachmangosteen correctly noted: it's secretly what Probst wants.

Catching up on this show. One more to go! This was a bizarre mix of songs. I agree that I was expecting to hear all holiday songs, but it was an odd mash-up. Rottweiler is in a holiday T-shirt and snow-covered trees to sing ... "Mr. Brightside?" And is "Hallelujah" a Christmas song? I can't stand "This Christmas," (as a song) so I was disappointed to see Fox get saddled with it. And the cognitive dissonance of the Christmas decorations with "Hey Big Spender" probably got Leopard booted. Thingamajig lasted about two weeks too long for me (and please, let's not do that again, where three out of four people have no prayer of guessing a person), and I'd have lost Flamingo over Leopard, but if we had to sacrifice Leopard to keep Fox and Rottweiler (the two strongest by far, to me), I'm fine with it. Roll on, finale.

I don't care about idols and advantages, but they need to ditch the F4 fire-making challenge. I don't care how "great TV" it is. It's made it near impossible for a woman to win. Ever since the fire-making challenge was instituted in S35, no women and five men have won in a row (which I believe is the longest string of male winners of the show's history). Two of those (Tommy and Nick) weren't directly involved, but other than that, the fire-making challenge is a king-maker. A literal king-maker. Not only that, the number of votes women finalists have received in five seasons? Two (both for Chrissy in S35). In the last four seasons, Laurel, Angelina, Julie and Noura have received a total of zero votes. None. Zip. Nada. I think it's time for them to admit that while it makes "great TV" at F4, it's also dropped their about 65/35 men/women winning percentage down considerably, to 80/20 in the last 10 seasons, and now 100/0 in the last five seasons. That's Big Brother levels of disparity, for a show that used to be what I considered as gender-balanced as could be expected for a reality competition show. Kill the fire-making challenge with fire. As I've said before, it's turning Survivor into American Idol (a game only young, mostly white men can win).

I'm not sure what to make of the reunion. At first, I was livid at the show for Probst doing the usual "We're live, it's fun, happy Survivor!" intro, then I was annoyed that there was Sia money to begin with (though happy she didn't show up and support this nonsense). I thought the interview with Kellee was as well-done as it could've been, and I'm of the opinion she received a settlement from CBS, which is why she was willing to sit on the Stools of Seriousness (tm Glee), and be the designated spokesperson to receive the "we didn't mean it, we're sooooooo sorrryyyyyyy" Jeff Probst apology. I'm still sort of shocked that Probst apologized to Kellee (another reason I think they settled with her), but I did not like how he tried to slip in a defense of himself (boo hoo to your 15-hour time difference, and I noticed that "men and women working diligently" reference, when I'm pretty sure most of production is men). I was pleasantly surprised Kellee was allowed to subtly call out production for not removing Dan sooner -- another reason I think she's settled with them. And I sort of believe them when they say this won't happen again. But that doesn't exonerate them from this ever happening in the first place. It's like they want credit for changing and saying "we're all better now, we'll do better," when I continue the question the ... humanity of a production team that could've looked at a woman in tears, with all the harassment on tape, against multiple women, and gone "nah, we're good" in the first place. I guess I do believe Survivor when they say they've learned from this, and I do actually trust them (because they're an aging show who can't afford -- literally afford -- to alienate the audience like this) when they say they've improved their procedures going forward. But they're asking me to dismiss a horribly uncomfortable, disturbing season where we had to witness multiple women being harassed (assaulted, in legal terms) with "mistakes were made." And yeah ... no. I will try to forgive, Survivor, but I will not forget how you took my favorite show, my fun escape for the week, my beloved psychological rollercoaster of a mind trip that I used to adore, and turned it into something unrecognizable. Something that turned my stomach. And I will not forget how you failed to protect the contestants.

Yeah, that's something Varner conveniently skipped over in his recap of episodes 2-7, because I distinctly remember Missy and Elizabeth acting out how Dan was all over them in the shelter, and "oh, I didn't get touched last night, he found Janet and he was good." That's a coping mechanism. That's what you do when you're uncomfortable, you joke and minimize and say "it's fine, everything's fine, you know, it's fine." As someone who's always believed that Missy and Elizabeth were as uncomfortable as Kellee and chose to express it and deal with it differently (and yes, use it as gameplay because production refused to do the right thing, and they had to work within the broken system's rules), this is why women don't speak up, Jeff Varner. Because when they do, like Kellee, they're accused of being outliers, and when someone takes back an accusation or pretends like it doesn't bother them in order to survive in the real world (or a game show), the man is automatically vindicated and exonerated because "See! See! Those other girls were okay with it! That makes it okay!" I think Varner is lying to himself if he thinks this has ruined Dan. Show me a sexual harasser that has ever been "ruined" by his behavior becoming public. Weinstein raped women and is facing criminal charges. But sexual harassment gets a pass -- always has, always will (ever since Anita Hill, really). Elizabeth got rumored death threats. Dan will be fine. Because Survivor really is the microcosm of society it's always claimed, just probably not in the way that it wanted to be.

And this season gets a mediocre white dude winner who was in the majority, had people falling all over themselves to protect him, was taken to the end by a woman, bragged about how doing nothing was his strategy, and was rewarded for it. Well, this season certainly got the winner it deserved.

Now I know why Kellee didn't get the Sia money. She clearly got the CBS money.

They'd better not try and do Probst's typical hyping up of the finale with the audience or I may throw something at the screen. My pie-in-the-sky dream for the reunion (if we can't have contestants and victims of sexual assault shame Probst and the network for an hour) is to let the contestants talk. That Probst shuts his piehole and listens -- to Kellee, to Janet, to Molly, to Jamal, even to Missy and Elizabeth. And that he doesn't even dare to insinuate that the show handled this properly or defend their actions. Just keeping his trap shut and silently accepting responsibility would be a start. I hope Probst realizes how tone-deaf and insensitive he looks if he tries to make others' pain into a "teaching moment." Because the only people who need a teaching moment is Survivor production: on how not to expose themselves to lawsuits and freaking take women seriously the next time. But you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, as my poli-sci professor used to say. I don't need them to admit wrongdoing (though they should, but I get why they can't) or apologize. But I do need them to not pretend they did everything right, like that arrogant statement they released about "listening responsibly" and "taking appropriate action." No. They did neither. So the next best thing they can do is shut up and listen. But I know that probably won't happen.