NutMeg

I feel very saddened by the death of Kate Spade, especially if it is suicide. Suicide is always such a tragedy, and pointless - as I read somewhere, but don't remember the source, it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I did considered the option of suicide twice in my life, only to reject it because, once again, life is ebb and flow, there are lows, there are highs, and no low is ever permanent. And each time, the future held promises, when I was a teen, and later when I had a child that I couldn't have hurt that way. So suicide seems to me the saddest tragedy of them all, because it means you are literally hopeless, have no hope of things ever improving. And therefore I have a hard time with this news about Kate Spade. She had a child, a 13 year old child. She sold her brand a year after her daughter was born, which I'm sure must have been a tough adjustment. But still, she took time to see her grow up. And I'm devastated with the last message, as read in the Guardian, saying "I've always loved you, it's not your fault", which is so heavy for a teenager and brings to mind that maybe she would think it was her fault. "Ask Daddy" is tough too, that daughter will need a lot of help and support from her dad, and "Ask Daddy" why mom killed herself is a very tough legacy. I really hope for the daughter's sake that the trigger to her mother's suicide wasn't some falling out between the parents - Once again, suicide is so often "didn't have to be", wait a few days, weeks or months, and you'll be fine again, and be there for the people who love you.

Has anyone noticed volume gain around the abdomen in pre- and/or menopause? And has anyone found a way around that? That's where I am now and it's a shock because my weight had barely fluctuated since my early 20s, but now it's off the chart and varies wildly from day to day. More worrisome is that my stomach also varies wildly, one day all nice and toned, the next one all bloated , and the third with a fat layer, and then we start again... :( I feel like I should invest in a new wardrobe, because despite ab work and cardio, I'm still only my previous normal size one day out of three, and the rest of the time, my clothes don't fit like I would like them to. I feel it's not just that I need to buy one size bigger, but that maybe what so far worked for me no longer will, because my proportions are changing too... :( I need to take the time to go and try clothes and see what fits my new body, but I'm dreading it. Which is ridiculous, because I need nice clothes that fit and make me look good...

I'm right there with you with being fascinated by Matt, as a person rather than as a contestant. After watching this season years after it happened I googled him, and found that he both had a great career, but was also taking time for extreme adventures. That is truly impressive, because he's neither a "real work" type that decided to have a fling/life dream type survivor experience, nor is he the mactor or contestant with an unstable work situation. I was particularly impressed that he actually had various careers, having for instance decided to learn French cooking in France :) And of course his mastery of Mandarin, in addition with French and whatever other languages left me in awe of him. I've not googled him now, so as not to be biased if there are some new stuff, this is all how I remember it from when I watched the season. I think he's the most intriguing contestant I've even seen and definitely amongst the top 5 I'd most like to meet, and the only one that interests me more as a person than for his experience of the game.

I love this show. Love the weekly stories, the current-ness with all the surrealistic feeling, and, above all, the way women friendships are depicted - weirdly, this important part of women's life is rarely depicted well on TV. (Back to the days of the Good Wife, one of the things I like best in the first seasons was how Alicia and Kalinda both slowly lowered their guard to become friends.) Diane and Liz, in particular, have been a joy to watch and I'm so happy we had the addition of Liz this year. The whole cast is fantastic and they all work for me. Apart from Liz and Diane (and Kurt), I have a sweet spot for Marissa and enjoyed her growing friendship with Jay (yep, friendship again, also not often depicted between a man and a women), and also like Maia a lot. And of course Adrian and Lucius (?) are just a joy. Luca is probably the weakest spot for me (together with Colin), but in a stellar cast that means I find her character good, but just slightly less exciting than others. I do love Colin's mother, though, as long as it's in small doses.

I too think the editing was extremely bad. We never got to know how the not chosen (for broadcast) ones interacted. Come to think of if, we also saw very little interactions between the people highlighted this season and the rest of the cast. This season was boring, no doubt, because idols reduced any suspense to X or Y!!!!?, when really at it would have made more fun if we still had viable options A, B, C and Z, at a minimum. I too would like to know the rest of the cast more and not seem them reduced to stereotypes (Sebastian this season, even the Judd who was called Fabio, but at least he could laugh at the stereotype all the way to the bank). While I'm happy with the ending, I find that this season has not ben exciting, and that may be mostly because we got to know so little about some contestants, but also because of these HII that work too late in the game (the winner is X or Y, as highlighted by editing; both have II that can bring them to 4; then, in the worst scenario for them, they'll have to build a fire. And as their opponent hasn't been portrayed as a desirable winner, there is a high probability that contestant X or Y, as the case may be, will win the fire challenge, which means tremendous odds on winning the game. Yeah, riveting indeed.

Don't sweat it, all will be resolved in no time. But other problems will appear.

That's what our gossipy Jeff of yore would have spent the whole reunion trying to find out. It is an answer, yes, to a question that has no right or wrong answer, more like if I asked you if the painting Mona Lisa is relevant to contemporary art, you give me your view and arguments for it, which I may find relevant or not - totally my prerogative, because there is no right answer, just the fact that I find your answer convincing or not.

Yes, especially because she must have thought that she had just saved his beef in the previous TC by giving him information that he was targeted. Then again, maybe she regretted that move afterwards, and blamed Dom because, well, because she made the mistake that possible saved him.

I must be the only person not to have seen Frozen, but I second the sentiment. I thought the same about Gaston in Beauty and the Beast - he could have been the heartthrob of the village and a nice guy, and someone Belle liked, but was not in love with. And the battle at the end would have been at least as good, if not more so, if the Beast just gave up and withered because he thought Belle was not coming back, as in the book (IIRC).

How fucked up is it that the Reunion was mostly about random little girl, another CBS show, previous Survivor players that didn't add anything*, a 30 sec or so preview for next season, Sia and her random donations, and no talk to the contestants from this last season not named Michael. Gee, I wonder if he might be returning... *I would have given Jeff a pass if he had mentioned Eric's cartoons based on Survivor. I only saw snippets but I'd love to read them, seeing as he went through that whole thing, etc. twice! (Come to think of it, maybe the fact that his cartoons are NOT promoted by CBS is even more reason for me to try and get my hands on them).

Unfortunately, I don't see TPTB abandoning the F4 fire making challenge now that twice in a row the winner of the season would most likely have been gone at 4. (and I won't talk about the winner here, because - policy!) Fortunately, we got a decent final pool. Granted, next to Dominic and Wendell, Laurel's chance seemed pretty slim. But it's one of the few times when I would have been ok with any winner amongst the two really in consideration. I can count on the fingers of one hand when that happened: Yul/Ozzy, Sandra/Parvati, maybe Parvati/Amanda? So, there's that. Still, I thought Laurel pled her case pretty convincingly. I regret that there were so many idols still in the hands of the most powerful challenge and strategic threats so late in the game. It would have been more compelling if all had to hustle more for their survival in the game. Although, Dom's play at that first tribal was as ballsy as it gets. Something was really wonky with the way this season was edited.

Answering to the bolded part: I find myself always a bit disappointed for the one who didn't win when I think both had valid ways to win. So I share your disappointment, and I would probably be disappointed for Wendell if Dominic had won. Weird, but yeah. Angela could very well be cast in any period drama. I can very well picture her on The Age of Innocence, for instance. She has an amazing face. As do the other F6. Dom, for instance, would look good in both a Renaissance drama or the Tudor series. Donathan has a gorgeous face (mostly when still). Wendell could fit in anything. Even Sebastian looked like he could play a musketeer there at the end (he looked very good in the night vision cam at the beginning of the episode). And Laurel is so versatile, she could play either strong athlete or savvy genius :)

As I said above, I watched the season long after it aired and absolutely loved Matt, who is one of the most interesting person I've ever seen on Survivor. It's only after watching that I remembered the canon that says Jenna won because she took a crazy guy to FTC. To anyone who watched it live, was that how it felt at the time? It seems so far from the truth that I'm wondering if it's a "back them, the villains were rather tame" kind of thing, or some other effect.

Haha, yes, agree on Matt, I watched this season a couple of years ago and was fascinated by him. However, I disagree with you on Jenna, who I thought actually played a good game (that was edited as why other people- like Rob- lost, unfortunaly).

That's fascinating. What I remember from her first season is that she seemed to be quite powerful, the edit didn't show it much, but when there was talk of eliminating The then Man in the game (can'y remember his name), it was made clear that to make that happen, you needed Parvati. Also, Yul feared her the most, and I know TBTP framed her as hte flirty person they had decided was her shtick, but even back then her editing was bursting from the "flirty" constraints, we (well, I) could see that she had a strong social game, even gaining too much sympathy from Becky and Sundra for Yul's sake. And from Ozzy, as editing wanted us to thing, although it was less meaningful, but at least there was a possibility to label that connection as "flirty". And again, Parvati 2.0 and 3.0 was initially edited as a flirt and not much else, even though that's maybe a tiny part of what made her lethal as a contestant. If she had been a man, she'd have been edited very differently. Parvati 2.0 is sooo interesting that it would require a lengthy analysis, But in short, 3.0, we coud have seen her building an alliance with someone who also felt at the bottom from the start (instead of being "saved" by the famewhore du jour; making her way through playing along when needed, and winning immunities in the most amazing ways* ; and mastering immunity idol play, as none had before or since (no, TPPB and JT, it was all her, Russell gave her info and idols, but how she used them was all her.) *that hanging to the pole challenge? when she looked lie se was just standing there for fun? was a thing of beauty, beating even Ozzy, who is still my benchmark for most challenges, because wins are one thing, but sometimes they are graceless,whereas any way Ozzy ever moved in any challenge was a joy to the eyes. My Pantheon of graceful challenge performers also includes Parvati; Aras; Danielle and Courtney in their first (or only) season; it's this sweat spot of challenge and performer perfectly suited to it. There have been challenge beasts that had no grace or charm Terry really made an impression on me in that regard, he sure was efficient but his way of moving was clearly nor aesthetic. With the Ozzys of this world, what amazes me is that mix of mastery, ease and grace, which makes the way they can move so elegant and such a pleasure to watch. I can't believe I forgot Miss Alli's dislike of Parvati. I used to look forward to her recaps, but I realize now how powerful a force she was (she created the narrative and policed the forums, after all). Her love for Jonathan Penner might have instructed that dislike and blinded her to the fact that Jonathan, while probably great in real life, is really a bad Survivor player. But really, not much has changed, there might not be a Miss Alli, but there stil is a similar force, look at the first page of any episode and you'll see dozens of people agreeing to very superficial, immediate reactions to the episode, and most of them won't maybe second guess that first reaction.

He, not always 'unfortunately' :) First time Parvati came back, the forum (well, TWOP back then) exploded with rants that she was no favorite, blabli, blabla. And then she made history. Twice, I'd say.

I would have thought there were cameramen all the time there too, so that is an unpleasant surprise here, and I really feel for the contestant, because whether or not there were cameras around clearly didn't save her from something bad. I believe her claims, tragically, and if there was any doubt the season would not have been canceled (there might be some footage they got, even if there were no people around).

All of them still in now are interesting, but in the I-want-to-understand them-better I'd have him second to Sebastian, who we know even less about but who seems to be more interesting that's shown so far without being shown. But Donathan is definitely intriguing. I suspect (most obvious interpretation) he's playing very badly, and if I'm generous I'd say maybe he is aiming for the goat spot? although I don't think that's what he's going for, but there is still a (smaller, diminishing by the day), chance that his "big move" will be rewarded by the goat spot. [Does my post make sense? I know what I meant to write, but not sure I managed... I'll blame jet lag and would happily rephrase if needed.]

Fun stuff to read, part of me hopes you're right, because wouldn't we be surprised!? Part of me thinks you're wrong, because Dominic and Wendell really have dominated this season since the merge without being jerks, and Donathan's game play has been erratic: excellent stealth when he brings intel and counsels on who to inform or not, but very bad (this last episode) when he goes on the offensive. But another part of me hopes that something, anything, will hinder D&W's advance, and I hope that it won't be the other one of D or W. So, hopefully, Donathan is playing for the golden goat spot, and hoping his play earned him some points with the jury. It's not impossible. The editors have been very "good" this season at leaving us in the dark as to the strategies of most players.

Yes, it was, and from what I read the contestant had a previous heart condition, so it's really tragic all around - not only him but the doctor too, and all their family and close ones. I'm also at a loss at what could have happened (French newspapers talk about rape...). I've never watched Koh-Lanta, just caught part of episodes here and there, but they didn't grip me. But indeed, the question is how this was not stopped, whatever it was that happens, it's mind-boggling that it wasn't stopped. Infuriating. So tragic.

Well, at least she was on theme. But Rihanna did the Pope outfit better (thanks to Galliano, another fallen angel).

You guys, this is awful https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/357219/french-tv-cancels-popular-show-after-fiji-sexual-assault-complaint

Damn... That show started out so strongly and ended up petering out only in the third season :( I agree that the final episodes redeemed the season somewhat, but after how bad most of season 3 had been, the bar was pretty low.

You know, I think this was the Donathan discussion thread, but clearly I was wrong. This guy interests me with his mix of ambition, frustration, eagerness and self-defeat.

My bad, I thought he had to pay the price of a lost vote to play.