[Fix The Show]

(Had comments about Rob, but moved them back to the RHAP forum)

[Rob Has A Podcast: Survivor Edition]

(Bringing this back over from Fix the Show :) Odd that these two forums are so tied together.)

 

I think you guys are being a little hard on Rob.  The idea that RHAP is a PR mouthpiece for the Survivor producers is ludicrous.  Rob has access because he's a former player and knows everyone, in addition to being a friendly guy.  It's not like he has Probst's Corner every week.  (Now... is Dalton Ross a PR agent for Survivor? Hmmmmm....)  Rob keeps his access because he doesn't try to get his guests to violate their NDAs.  Not liking RHAP is one thing, but assuming it's propaganda is a little off.  (All IMHO -- if Probst babysits Rob's kids in the offseason, I'll recant.)

 

All that said, I think Rob does get tunnel vision about what makes a good Survivor player.  He likes the ones that play strategically, as you'd expect, but he seems to love the ones who don't play strategically but are instead "good TV."  He seemed legit shocked that people didn't flock to vote in T-Bird or Shane Powers for this season.

 

I think this may have led to Rob's blind spot with Dan and Will and Rodney and misogyny in Worlds Apart. I think he saw those guys as Good TV (okay, maybe not Will) because they were so over-the-top outrageous.  A lot of the rest of us were watching them with lip-curling disdain. But to Rob's credit, he did have guests on to talk more eloquently about those issues.

[S31: Ciera Eastin]

I'm not quite ready to take Kass' word on her own booting, especially after she's had a few months to revise her history in her head.

While Kass may have gotten screwed because of her own nickname/persona, I do not believe that losing Woo was such a tragedy for everyone that Ciera couldn't have escaped blame. She just needed to be cool for more than a minute. But no, she decides to mix it up for some ill-defined reason.

 

And Abi was just being Abi.  No one has been inclined to vote her out before for the same thing, and no one seems to be grumbling about it now.

 

Blindsiding Woo was survivable for at least two of them, probably all three, even in the cold wind of Savage's affronted honor. 

[S31: Kass McQuillen]

If Kass were 10% the wily genius she thinks she is, she could have made them see the advantages. Or if she had spoken to the right people. 

[S31: Ciera Eastin]

I like Ciera.  Or is it Baylor?  No, Ciera. So that just makes it sadder for me when she torpedoed her own game for reasons never made clear.  It's one thing to go for broke if you're on the chopping block, but it's another to put your own head on the block and tell the executioner that he doesn't have the guts to swing.

[S31: Kass McQuillen]

So many lost opportunities.  If Kass&Co had targeted Savage instead of Tasha, I bet they could have pulled in Spencer and Stephen (who is literally crying for the chance to do something big).

[S13.E06: Bunking With The Devil]

Woo is the most harmless player left in the game. Yea, he's an immunity threat, but he's also a follower with little to no strategy and no connections to Bayon. Andrew on the other hand...

But if Abi digs her heels in -- and I think that's the only thing Abi knows how to do with heels -- and insists on Woo-voted-for-me-twice or nothing, then taking away Andrew's second vote is better than nothing.  You left a power player in the game, but without Abi's vote you wouldn't have a majority and couldn't flip the script to anyone else.

 

I agree Andrew was the more strategic move. But Ciera would have needed Wigles or Woo to go along with it. At least Andrew is temporarily less powerful without two votes. At least until the merge... (add ominous music...)

[Past Seasons Talk: The Tribe Has Spoken]

Was there ever a winner that was socially awward? Apart from Cochran, who hid his awkwardeness behind 1) his returnee  status in a FvF seasin, 2) not being threatening, 3) Dawn.    

Looking over the list of winners, I can't find anyone else.  But man, there are some close calls. (Both with the "dumb" thing and the "socially awkward" thing.)  There but for the grace of Sophie goes Sole Survivor Coach Wade, for example.

[S31: Spencer Bledsoe]

He has a better social game than Chicken and Wanda put together :)

[S31: Previews and Speculation]

I'd love for them to do a merge where the tribe that is moving shows up at the other tribes camp in the middle of the night (just to scare the hell out of them-though it would ruin the merge feast and bonding, but they can make up for it on one of the rewards).

I think they did that in Guatemala.  It was awkward.  We got two scoops of Jamie's asshollity.

[S31: Spencer Bledsoe]

Maybe it's me, but I think being a social person and having a good social game in Survivor are different things.  Being one doesn't necessarily mean you're also the other.

 

Spencer seems like friendly and likable guy. I'm sure I'd enjoy his company if I were ever around him.

 

But in Survivor, likability is nice, but you have to make other tribe members want to ally with you. You have to convince them it's in their best interests (whatever those interests are) to work with you, and that you will work with them.

 

I have not seen that out of Spencer. Maybe my criteria for what makes a good social game is different.

[S31: Stephen Fishbach]

(Copied over from the episode thread)

 

I think we'll just have to disagree on this :)  I'm not saying Stephen wasn't a little uncomfortable watching that scene last week.  I kinda was too. 

 

I read it as just his frustrations getting the best of him in a TH. It wasn't about Joe, it was him being unable to find a path forward mixed with fatigue at having to be "on" all the time at camp.  He knows he's not at the center of things, and he can't really stay out of everyone's notice because they know what kind of player he is.

 

I'd bet these little raw emotional moments are common when a player gets away from everyone else. For whatever reason, we saw this one.

 

I understand if it reads a little whiny or entitled. Fishbahhk may have some of that in him too -- he did date Courtney Yates for awhile, they must have had something in common. From my POV, dude just needed a release. Been there, although never when I was on the far side of the planet with no one I could open up to.

[S31: Spencer Bledsoe]

All things considered, to rebound from the worst situations - which Spencer was put in through no fault of his own, I think he has done an excellent job both seasons.

I think I would quibble a bit that Spencer is blameless for getting into bad situations.  Certainly it wasn't entirely his fault -- lots of Survivor is a roll of the dice.  In his first season, the dice came up "J" and "Tia."

 

But is social game has never been great. We've seen this season that he has to remind himself to interact with the meatbags and and interested in their little meatbag stories.

 

He ended up doing well in Cagayan.  I don't think he's a bad player at all.  But to this point, I think his game has been incomplete. We'll see how long his new emotion chip lasts :)

[S13.E06: Bunking With The Devil]

I think we'll just have to disagree on this :)  I'm not saying Stephen wasn't a little uncomfortable watching that scene last week.  I kinda was too.  

 

I read it as just his frustrations getting the best of him in a TH. It wasn't about Joe, it was him being unable to find a path forward mixed with fatigue at having to be "on" all the time at camp.  He knows he's not at the center of things, and he can't really stay out of everyone's notice because they know what kind of player he is.

 

I'd bet these little raw emotional moments are common when a player gets away from everyone else. For whatever reason, we saw this one.

 

I understand if it reads a little whiny or entitled. Fishbahhk may have some of that in him too -- he did date Courtney Yates for awhile, they must have had something in common. From my POV, dude just needed a release. Been there, although never when I was on the far side of the planet with no one I could open up to.

 

ETA: I'm going to copy this over to Stephen's own thread.

[S13.E06: Bunking With The Devil]

I think I understand Stephen's POV.  He knows he screwed up with J.T. the first time, and it gnaws on him. He's had to live with it not just in his own head but as part of being in the Survivor community and writing about the show and Rob's podcast and all that. Then he gets back out there and is trying to fix the mistake he made the first time and he can't.  

 

That would frustrate the crap out of me too. I don't think I'd break into tears, but at this point they've been out there for, what, two weeks? Hell, I might burst into tears if someone whistles that "I want my baby back baby back baby back" ribs song.

[Rob Has A Podcast: Survivor Edition]

Oops.  Wrong thread.

[Rob Has A Podcast: Survivor Edition]

Apropos of nothing....

 

I've been working my way through The Evolution of Strategy and just got to the beginning of Survivor China.

 

I can't believe I'd forgotten about Chicken Morris! DAYUM!

 

If you don't remember, Chicken was an older guy who'd worked with poultry most of his life until he got pecked by a radioactive chicken and inherited the vast chicken powers to help fight cri---.... DAYUM!

 

Starting over. Chicken was an older guy who'd worked with poultry most of his life, earning him his nickname. On Survivor, he was making suggestions on how to build the shelter, and he did give the impression that he knew what he was doing. But he thought he was irritating his tribe so he backed off and wouldn't give advice on anything, even when asked. It was like he was terrified of being thought a leader, so he would just say "whatever you want to do is okay with me." But Peih Gee v1.0 wasn't having that crap and decided he was useless if he wasn't going to share what he knew.

 

So she engineered his ouster over Ashley, the WWE wrestler how had gotten sick but hadn't yet recovered and couldn't do much.  At TC when Jeff says "The first person voted out of Survivor China... Chicken" he lets loose with a loud DAMN! that visibly startles the rest of the tribe. He stomps out of the games and into our hearts (although obviously not into my own long-term memory).

 

Here's to you, Chicken -- your accidental comedy potential was squelched before it's time.

 

Dayum.

 

ETA: Reading through this, it sounds like a eulogy.  As far as I know, Chicken Morris is alive and well in Virginia. The Survivor Wiki says he has four dogs. I hope he goes into state politics.

[S31: Terry Deitz]

Sure, but I think Kass' and Keith's military training was less intense :)

 

I suppose they were just too surprised by Jeff being there in the middle of the night to ask WTF was up. Or maybe I'm just unbearably rude in these situations and can't stop myself from asking. Not sure which is more likely :)

[S31: Terry Deitz]

No worries!  It's true I did absolutely no research into any of the backstory :) I had a brother-in-law who was on the wait list for a heart-lung transplant and had been for more than a year.  Everyone pretty much got on with their lives as usual, knowing in the backs of their minds that they could get The Call any second.  I assumed it was a similar thing with Danny, so it would make sense for Terry to just live his life and just coincidentally happened to be in Cambodia at the wrong time.

[S31: Terry Deitz]

Your impression is wrong. 

Fair enough. I was just going on what we saw on TV.

[S31: Kass McQuillen]

You know, without these forced confessional that bring back "Chaos Kass" (and I hate all monikers, in particular where self promoted), and even with these, I like her a lot. She may pretend she's wonky but she seems to play rationally.

I'm glad you said that.  Kass seems to be playing a deliberate game with each option carefully thought through.  She is willing to jump alliances if it suits her, but that's hardly uncommon in Survivor. That might be aggravating to her tribemates, but it's not exactly chaotic.

[S13.E06: Bunking With The Devil]

He had one in week one and another last week.  That's about it.

I tune him out when he's on screen, and come back to the game when I hear the sound of spitting.

[S31: Terry Deitz]

My impression from the scene where Jeff pulls Terry from the game is that Terry knew what was up.  And when Terry told everyone else his son was in the hospital, no one said "for what?"  Made me think Terry had talked about his son previously. (If so, that would have been a more interesting thing to share than the bit about how Savage loves his hot wife.)

 

I know the details could have been edited out, but that was my impression based on what we saw.

[S31: Kass McQuillen]

I think Andrew was a bridge too far for that group of people, at least this episode.  Also suspect Abi is the one who pushed for Woo, who has been in her crosshairs for some time now. 

Losing Terry Dietz and Andrew Savage the same night would have made the Survivor people curl up with their body pillows.

[S31: Terry Deitz]

Terry and his son look identical except for the age difference.  It's like they were twins and one got hit by an accidental Mitt Romney ray.

 

Good luck to the Dietzen. I never got any full-on hate for Terry, since most of that was absorbed by Shane in their season.  I was amused this time around that he (and Spencer) both had to keep consciously reminding themselves to feign interest in the nearby illogical meatbags.