SVNBob

With Mergatory on the horizon, a Tracker post will be coming soon.

In a slight reversal of their recent SOP, Netflix is doing an animated reboot of "Good Times". https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/good-times-animated Though it's a little more like Star Trek: TNG. It's the current generation of the Evans family...still living the same apartment.

As if the producers didn't have anything to do with casting in the first place. Bhanu was chosen because they thought he'd be an interesting person/player... same as the other 17 members of this cast. No shenanigans.

I'm pretty sure that Maria was involved in one of those conversations with Jem that theorized that Tim was who found the Beware and planted it where it was found by the group. So she may already be thinking along the lines that she still has her vote. Or, Maria may not be concerned because she got an Extra Vote on the Day 1 Journey, so she might still have a vote despite the Beware. Though she may try to get someone else to cast the Extra on her behalf if she is concerned.

Minor Genius mention in the media. Tom Scott has a panel show-esque podcast called Lateral, which is all about lateral thinking questions. One of the questions in episode 75 is about Moby and his tattoos. One of the guests mentioned that Moby wrote the music for Bourne movies, to which Tom brought up the fact that they used that same song, "Extreme Ways", as the "something awesome is about to happen" music in a South Korean show called "The Genius." He also mentioned that contestants in later episodes lamp-shaded it and brought up that someone was trying to get the Moby to drop. I mean, if you know who Tom Scott is, I don't think you'd be surprised to know he's watched The Genius. It was more of a surprising reference at an unexpected time.

That reminds me of another bit of info I saw on Reddit. Apparently Bhanu had more confessionals in these 4 episodes than Parvati did in the entirety of her winning season.

Which given the fact that Jem couldn't have known that I posted in the episode 4 thread , her quote is even funnier.

From the Live thread: Bandage over a tattoo. Apparently it's Allister Fiend, Motley Crue's mascot. Suspicion is that it was covered for copyright reasons. Which means "If I had a nickel for every time there was a contestant on Survivor named Ben who had to have a tattoo covered for copyright reasons, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice." A tit-bit that makes the Green group dig for the Beware "funnier": they're on the same beach as Blue from 43, and Karla revealed on Twitter that that particular tree was where they had their latrine at first. Something that I noticed that I haven't seen mentioned here: After the IC, when Bhanu figured out that he was the one about to be voted out, he went through the 5 stages of grief in rapid succession. And the editors showed them all in the accepted order: Denial - "I'm safe if only I can find the Idol" Anger - shouting at God Bargaining - "help me / find me an Idol" Depression - collapsed on the trail Acceptance - peace before/at TC However you feel about Bhanu, you have to give the editors props for that whole sequence. It was very well done.

In a world of 90 minute episodes and 39 days in the game, you're right. We're in a world of 90 minutes an episode and 26 days in the game; 1/3rd less time. And it's the days of game time that's the main factor for the combined challenges, not the minutes of episode time. If there were still separate RCs and ICs in this era, there'd have to be a challenge every day. So no rest days. On a limited caloric intake. The combination of exhaustion and lack of food would likely kill someone. Which would kill the show, not fix it.

I haven't been bingeing this show, so I was a little bit spoiled for the use of "Leaves on the Vine" for the funeral scene in this episode. But it made sense to be there. So I was prepared for it, and still got a little misty. What I was not expecting was for them to use it again for the flashback of the beginning of Zuko's quest. They didn't need to use it there, yet they did. And it was still gorgeous. These creators, man. They do get it.

What makes this concept even more interesting is the Survivor rule that the same person cannot sit out consecutive challenges. So that makes the decisions on when you'd force the strong people to sit out even more crucial. Also, while this idea makes intuitive sense when there's only one tribe down, there's at least a couple edge cases to consider when there's two tribes down. One is the 6-5-4. How would this be decided? The tribe of 4 picks one person from each of the other 2 tribes, then the 5 picks one of the 6? Or does the 4 pick all 3? Another edge case is the 6-5-5 and/or 5-4-4. Do the two down tribes have to agree on who to choose from the other? Can they confer? Or does the most recent loss dictate which tribe gets the choice?

There were two different segments in the pre-Race banter that were a bit sus. The part about the "previous Race" and "one new country" was one of them, but it was less edited than the other. Phil was actually visible in shot for portions of that. And as noted above, it still made sense for both versions of reality, since both "previous Races" visited a new country; Jordan and Slovenia respectively. So there may have been some editing trickery on that part, but not a whole lot. Might even be related to the extended cut more than anything else. The other moment came before that, and was strictly done as shots of the Racers with a Phil VO. That one was definitely assembled for the moment. Problem is now that I can't remember what it was about.

It wasn't for lack of trying though. Apparently he did want to pass it off to her, and talked to Peachy about it, but Peachy stuck by the rule that says "Unclaimed Beware Advantages are non-transferable." Which makes sense, since until you find/claim the Beware Advantage, you don't have a vote. If it were transferable, people would be moving that penalty around every chance possible. Maybe even weaponizing it (as in, giving someone the unclaimed Beware to deprive them of their vote before a crucial TC.) Now, if he had claimed the Beware, he could have passed the HII to Venus like normal...if it were on his person when they came to yoink him. Because other medevacs with regular idols had also tried to do hand-offs in their yoinkings, but they didn't have them on hand right then. So those idols were declared dead. Expect there to be a new Beware clue hidden on Nami and the box to be moved. Unless Randen didn't tell Venus where the clue/box were, then they could place the clue back in the original spot...

TBF, those are small numbers. Chump change, if you will. He's better when dealing with numbers in at least the 6-figure range.

In this "new era", even moreso in the last couple seasons, it has been the case. And one of the reasons is the game design. With 3 tribes/6 players per to start, a death spiral can start almost immediately. Once a tribe is down one member after TC, they may not have the "right people" to not lose an IC and prevent themselves from going back to TC to lose another member. That means they may not have the "right people" at the next IC, etc.... And since it's the same tribe constantly going to TC, we do spend more time with them, since that's the tribal dynamics that we need to know about before TC. It was even worse up to just 2 seasons ago, when the episodes were all just 60 minutes. That meant even less time that had to be spread out among the 3 tribes. Say what you will about 2 hour episodes being too long, but 90 minutes is just about right. There's an extra 22 minutes that can be allotted to the other tribes so we can see their dynamics as well as that of the losing tribe. For example, if this season was 60 minute episodes, we probably wouldn't know about the Maria/Charlie alliance on Green (or at least the "Charlie's Angels" setup to that), or why Venus is on the outs on Orange. (We might know that she is...as part of Randen's idol search, but not why.)

That's how free-standing arches like this one are traditionally built. Build up the two sides, then wedge the final block, the keystone, into place to force the other pieces to lock into place. Granted, there's usually a temporary support structure in place to hold up the rest of the arch until the keystone is placed.... The problem with all 3 tribes is that they all kept overshooting the keystone. They built their arches at least one block too far on one side or the other. That's part of why they kept falling. There wasn't any balance to the constructions.

Pun not intended, I'm sure.

So he's still as delusional as he was in Fiji.

There's also the implication that they thought they had ended the Avatar cycle, and that Ozai sending Zuko to "find the Avatar" was a snipe hunt. Hence Iroh saying that Zuko returning to the Fire Nation, successfully no less, would be "unexpected".

That the ground was a graveyard. And Josh said in the closing VO that the GPR crew continued checking and found even more voids in the same regularly spaced pattern and at the same depth, adding further weight to that conclusion.

While I'm not 100% sure how I found this (some sort of YouTube trawling looking into reaction videos of things, but I forget the exact chain that led me here), I recently completed watching The Watchers in the Bar (a group of friends/co-workers centered around a bar somewhere in Chicago, with all sorts of reaction video series...starting with Game of Thrones) 's reactions to both the original A:TLA and Korra. Like practically everyone, they loved the series and universe, so they're looking forward to this live action as well. They're prepared to watch the new series once it starts and release reaction episodes soon after, but they have reacted to both the official teaser and trailer. (Small warning: they made a lot of jokes that could "ruin your childhood" when they reacted to the two series, and they will most likely continue to do so in future. This group may not be for everyone.) They also reference another YouTube reaction channel; The Normies. They also covered both the original series and are very much looking forward to the new series And while I'm on the subject of reactions: Michaela Jill Murphy, the voice actress for Toph, has a series of A:TLA reactions on her channel. She's also reacted to the live action teaser (which appears to be her first reaction video) and the trailer.

New episodes started last night. And this first one was a pseudo-revisit. Phil and Jess went to Romania/Transylvania to investigate the Hoia Baciu, the "most haunted forest in the world". And a location that Josh visited with his old show; one where one of his crew, Evan, was attacked. Lots of interesting things happening with the equipment. And during the GPR check of the Rotunda, I came to the same conclusion Phil did just before he said it. Then again, there was a little prompting in that direction with the local experts that Jessica was talking to.

They've announced one team for the upcoming season. And it's obvious why they've chosen this team as the first to announce. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/former-kansas-city-chiefs-player-wife-become-first-members-of-the-amazing-race-2024-cast/

While watching the (new to me) episode on Bonnie and Clyde yesterday, I saw a promo for ExX's return on Feb 7.

It does; twice. The one on the left goes into the General Discussion thread, while the one on the right goes into the new forum.