Chicago Redshirt
-
Posts
5.0k -
Joined
Content Type
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Discussion
Posts posted by Chicago Redshirt
-
-
2 hours ago, blackwing said:
Way back in the very first season, Gretchen (the ex-military person who was actually some kind of survival instructor and thought the show was actually going to be about surviving in the jungle) voted out Joel (the young buck who was either some kind of personal trainer or someone who went around selling sports equipment, I can't remember) because she said he seemed to have a lot of money and didn't really need the money.
In Thailand, Brian Heidik won the reward of a video from home, and he was pissed because it showed his nice house (that he probably paid for from his "acting" career). I remember Clay kvetching about the grand piano.
Now we have Liz who openly tells everyone she is a millionaire. I don't recall hearing any of the others commenting on that, have they? Such a huge change from Joel, a young 20 something kid from Season 1 who obviously wasn't earning millions in his career, to Liz, 30 something single mom who openly says how successful she is. I wonder if any of the jury is thinking about this. I don't think it should matter how much money someone has. It's about who played the best game.
In fairness, I don't know if we have really heard anyone talk much to or about Liz. Despite her claims of masterminding Soda and Tevin's ousters, we haven't really seen anybody suggest that they are really working with Liz, or want Liz to be an ally, or see her as a threat, or much of anything.
I don't know if that's editing, a sign of how little the other Survivors think of her, or what.
To me, Liz has goat written all over her, and I fully expect her to get to the F3 in part because I suspect there is no majority coalition for sure that would vote to give her $1 million over anyone else remaining.
I could see 4-5 votes going for pretty much any of the other Survivors. hypothetically, but not Liz She might not be able to get a single vote in any variation of a three-person tribal.
Anyway, I have to challenge you on one point -- the winner isn't necessarily "who played the best game." It's whoever the jury thinks deserves to win $1 million the most, for whatever reasons, none of which need to be articulated or make sense.
Mostly, jurors probably tend to give it to the person who reasonably could be said to have played the best game, or at least a good enough game. But sometimes, they give it to people based on other factors, like likability or more to the point, non-hatability, their ability to make a case for themselves at the FTC.
I am convinced that Russell Hantz is one of the best to ever play Survivor, but he has not been capable of winning because his playstyle is so alienating.
-
4
-
1
-
-
9 hours ago, Carey said:
IMO, there are better options in Western Pennsylvania than Applebee's. Including Arby's, one or 2 McDonalds, Subway, and even one or 2 Little Caesars (the KMART ones)
Wow, I would imagine that Applebee's would generally be better than most of the sorts of national restaurant chains that don't have dedicated servers and the ability to serve alcohol. I think that it's in a class of restaurants like Chili's, TGIF, Outback Steakhouse, Buffalo Wild Wings, Red Robin and Ruby Tuesday. From my memory, I'd rank it at the bottom of those types, but above pretty much most national fast food chains like the ones you've listed that only have counter service.
I'd probably rather have a Five Guys burger than an Applebee's burger, and I might have had a Liz-style freakout if I was denied an In-and-Out double-double (although the last time I had one, I thought it was just meh).
-
1
-
-
4 hours ago, Tango64 said:
You just know there's some poor soul out there who's never been to Applebee's but saw this episode and thought, "Dang, that lady's really losing her shit over that hamburger. I'm going to have to go out and try that."
Applebee's does not seem to have tried to build on this, from a quick look at their Twitter. Pretty subpar.
1 hour ago, Andyourlittledog2 said:You know, people with multimillions don't generally go to Applebees's if they live anywhere that has better restaurants. I lived my whole life until recently in LA and LA county and never even saw an Applebees and it wasn't on my radar. Kind of like Dairy Queen - no interest whatsoever even if I knew where one was. Then I moved to a rural area out of state and honestly it's the usual place folks go. Fortunately ours is okay. I got dragged to one other in another town and it was vile. So there's definitely quality differences between franchises. Anyway, if Liz has that kind of money and lives anywhere that isn't rural I cast doubt on the whole Applebees story anyway.
I mean, no big fan of Applebee's -- don't think I've been to one in a decade or more -- but rich people can have all sorts of culinary tastes and be bound by nostalgia, force of habit, etc. From my quick googling, it looks like Liz lives in the Orlando, FL area, so I would imagine that there are "better" options than Applebee's.
-
4
-
-
On 4/28/2024 at 4:55 PM, blackwing said:
Charlie doesn't seem to have done much at all in the game besides attaching himself to Maria. He only became a de facto Six member because Tim got voted out. All he seems to have done from a strategy perspective in this game is attach himself to Maria. It doesn't say much for his game that the most notable thing I remember him doing (prior to winning this last IC) is the stupid Taylor Swift song-off with Ben.
In fairness, Charlie has done about as much as anybody in this game as anyone remaining, if not more.
His Survivor resume currently includes:
- 1 Immunity win, 1 second place;
- strong alliance with Maria, decent alliance with Ben;
- likable personality/decent social game that has left him with no overt enemies, and with basically everyone nominally willing to work with him;
- on the right side of every vote, never had name written down (I think) or even been the target of talk about an attempted ouster.
Most of the rest of the remaining people can't boast any immunity wins (only Maria and Kenzie. Most of the people remaining cannot accurately say that they have a tight alliance with anyone at this point (only Maria.) Most of the people remaining can't claim to be well-liked by most with no enemies (Ben and maybe Kenzie).
I don't know if anyone remaining can truly boast much more on their resumes than Charlie can. Liz can claim to be the brains behind getting rid of Tevin and Soda, I guess. But what else does she have?
The weaknesses in Charlie's resume thus far: 1. No big moves 2. No real distinction between his game and Maria's to show that he's the power in that duo, or at least that he was an equal partner/he wasn't just riding Maria's coattails 3. no discovery/play of a hidden immunity idol or advantage.
There's obviously a lot of game to be played, but if I were to cast a vote right now for the person who has done the best job of the remaining 8 thus far, I'd say it would go to either Charlie or Maria.
-
4
-
1
-
I do wonder:
Is Bhanu watching Q's self-implosion and nonsensical tactics and thinking to himself, "So that dude thought that he could give me tips on how to play Survivor and he's making these f---ed up moves?" Or is he like taking notes dutifully for if and when there's Bhanu S2: Electric Bugaloo/Bhanu:999,999 More Hearts To Go?
-
5
-
-
2 minutes ago, fishcakes said:
Hunter was dumb not to play his idol obviously, but I think Tiffany was too. As chaotic as it's been and after three blindsides in a row AND knowing that everyone knows she has it? She doesn't know about Kenzie targeting her, but she expressed some concern early on to Q about how hard Kenzie was playing. Not sure why she's not at least a little wary of her now, but honestly if Q and Kenzie teamed back up against her, I wouldn't be surprised.
I'll defend Tiffany a little.
Was it very likely that enough people would target her at this juncture to make playing her idol worth it?
There was, with the information she had available, not much reason to think that she might get a plurality of votes.
We know that Kenzie set in motion a possible blindside of her. But Tiffany did not have not much reason to think that Kenzie would vote her at this point.
Q might have reason to vote her, but he also has reason to keep her (such as to make amends and to win her and other potential jury votes over)
Other than Big Move Fever, nothing suggests anyone but Maria has any beef with her.
By contrast:
Q had begged to be voted off last time and was annoying everyone by staying. So it seemed likely he was going to get some votes.
Hunter is a challenge beast who at any time could go on an immunity run and at the very least would reduce the chances of others getting immunities. So it would make sense to try to get him out now while the getting was good.
Venus had already gotten some votes in the past and might have been drawn some in this one.
The probability of her idol being flushed if she played it versus it actually saving her like it's far better odds of it being flushed. Whereas I would put odds in Hunter's case like 50-50. And even if it is flushed, he has a pretty good chance of winning a future immunity. Whereas nothing we've yet seen from Tiff if I'm not mistaken suggests she is likely to even be in the top 2 of an immunity challenge.
-
9
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, QQQQ said:
Why are these people wearing clothing from my high school's 1987 lost and found bin?
AH! Four times Q!!!!!
-
2
-
-
It is also amazing that even with these longer episodes, it's not necessarily clear what the various Survivors are trying to do and how they expect to win.
Charlie and Maria are a pair and seem to be operating as such pretty openly. They seem to be the only ones who have 100 percent trust with each other, who are 100 percent working with each other. But is anybody going to think "Hey, Charlie actually has done pretty well in challenges too, and he's articulate and likeable and strategic...maybe we better get rid of him"?
Kenzie and Tiff are a pair, and have been working together. But everyone's favorite Mermaid Dragon started orchestrating a blindside of Tiffany already Seems a clearcut case of Big Move Fever. Say she had succeeded as early as this episode. Where would that leave Kenzie in terms of future votes? She can't rely on Q, not only because he is generally unreliable but also because she would have been instrumental in ousting his No. 1 ally and to the extent he cares about it still, a member of the Six. She might sidle up to Charlie/Maria and Ben to give old Siga a 4-3-1 lead, and then hope she's not blindsided once she's no longer useful, or flit back and side with old Nami to get rid of one of her Siga allies. Venus and Liz are weirdos and had been on the outs. Anyway, does she think it won't get back to Tiff that Kenzie has made a move on her?
What's Ben's plan besides his now-mandatory pronouncements of what does and does not rock?
What's Liz's, other than desperately wanting to get credit for being a leader so badly that she isn't apparently thinking about a) why she wants that credit NOW NOW NOW instead of just being able to claim it at the end and b) thinking about where she's allegedly leading? How does she not realize that taking credit now for moves would make her a target and be more likely to get her booted? Hasn't she known that flying under the radar is a perfectly valid strategy?
Does Q still think he has a shot at winning this, or is he just messing around? I unfortunately see the possibility of what has happened the last two tribals repeating: Q does crazy and annoying shiznit, the other Survivors say "now's a good time to vote off X, because we can always get to Q later" and Q surviving another round, wash/rinse/repeat until he's in the F3.
Venus seems to be feverishly trying to work this, but I'm not sure what she's trying to do either.
-
10
-
3
-
-
I just don't understand how so many of these people can claim to be superfans, and in Hunter's case, have been so into Survivor that he constructed all these homemade challenges, and yet don't get the very basics.
Has there ever been a situation where a challenge monster lost immunity and wasn't immediately voted off? How wasn't his Spidey-sense tingling? Was his interview about him playing his idol edited in some way?
Why oh why did Hunter even tell people he had an idol? He at one point understood the power of keeping it secret. I could understand trying to trust maybe one other person in the hopes that the two of you would keep it a secret, You would potentially be a lightning rod for all the votes and then you and your ally could pick someone to vote off. In theory, that might make sense. But then, who can you trust? You can't or shouldn't trust Q, who literally is in hot water for telling others that his then-number one ally has an idol and who is playing a game bizarre. And yet, Q was apparently the first person he told.
It feels so long ago since the last correct idol play.
Three of the Six have been ousted pretty much in a row, so I may still live the dream of a potential majority alliance imploding. Maybe it's weird of me considering it's a silly game, but I take some minor comfort in the fact that a fourth consecutive African-American was not sent home as it would have been if Q or Tiff ended up being booted.
I wonder if Nami had been told that the last of their tribe standing would be Great Value Parvati and Weirdo-who-can't-eat-anything if anybody would have believed them.
-
12
-
7
-
1
-
-
17 hours ago, Diana Berry said:
Question. So Q was all about the six. He found out Tiff was wavering and wanted her to leave. So why did he end up voting for Tevin? Confused.
Far be it for me to try to read into the amazing strategic prowess that Q possesses /s
But anyway...
Q can't vote for himself, so if he did literally want to be sent home and expected to be sent home, he had to vote for someone else.
Q still liked Tiffany and/or knew that there was no sense in voting Tiffany because there were not enough people who would go along with such a move. Also, Q might not want to undercut Tiffany's game any more than he inherently had by being a big ol' weirdo and outing that she has an immunity idol. Also, Q might have suspected that he wasn't going to get voted off and knew throwing Tiff's name out there would likely get traced back to him.
Q could have voted for Venus, as there were at least a few people who were anti-Venus, and that would be not going against "The Six."
But it seems like Q is honestly shaken up when he's not driving the vote or in the majority. So it could simply be that he just was counting votes and knew that Tevin looked to be a goner and sidled up to the majority.
-
1
-
1
-
-
It is my hope that the members of the plus-one alliance fumble and stumble so that they are eliminated one by one by one. Yes, technically Soda interrupted that streak, but now we have Tim and Tevin getting the boot.
Q has for the second time asked to be a target for a boot IIRC (I think back when it was all Yanu and he couldn't bring home a challenge win, he got frustrated and started some quitting talk). I would think that people would agree that they can't play with him and his mob boss strategy doesn't seem like it would work well when people have no reason to fear or trust him. I suppose they could see him as a goat because who's going to give his condescending bipolar ass $1 million after this tribal?
Hunter doesn't seem to have much of a social game and he is an obvious challenge beast. I would think people would try to boot him at the earliest opportunity. But he's got an idol, so it's going to take two tries.
I like Tiffany and Maria, and they weren't all into the plus one alliance...but I'd be amused if what presumably would be a first a majority alliance self-destructed from the onset for no good reason at all.
-
5
-
-
5 hours ago, jsm1125 said:
When did Brandon claim or imply that he was great at everything?
OK, it was a bit of an exaggeration. Strictly he probably only claimed he was great at puzzles and a social game, and he was terrible at both.
-
1
-
-
In just the last season and this one, Survivors that I think are easily at least as delusional as Q, and I would say more so. Q is mainly arrogant and condescending. I am not sure that he has been actively wrong about anything such that you could call him "delusional."
By contrast, people have already raised Bhanu and Jelinsky. Yes, Bhanu could be merely acting as delusional, but he's kept the act up. And Survivor 45 had:
Brandon - the guy who thought he was great at everything but who was actively and objectively terrible at everything
Sean - who claimed that he could have won the game despite being the only member of his old tribe after a switch, but wanted to speed up getting back to his husband
Bruce - who thought that he was God's gift to Survivor and who acted like his two days of prior Survivor experience made him a wily veteran, even though he literally had no allies, bossed people around and actively alienated people.
-
7
-
-
2 hours ago, JH Lipton said:
Last season, "Uncle" Bruce took over to a major extent and got voted out 10th. I'm not sure that Q will last that long.
But in part, the situations are different. Bruce had not a single real ally, and had a die-hard enemy in Katurah.
Q has Tiff who seemingly is actually in his corner and the remnants of the +1 alliance. I also think he's cool with Kenzie by and large. Time will tell if his condescension causes more people to target him.
1 hour ago, SnapHappy said:It's been a long time since we've seen somebody as truly delusional as Q. It would be funny if it was so sad, his lack of a grasp on reality. And that suck-up shout out to Kenzie was just transparent & stupid.
I don't think Q is that delusional....on a scale that includes even people from this season like Bhanu and Jelinsky, he's like a 2.
-
So much for the +1 alliance. Or is it? Will it morph by replacing Tim with Charlie, and if so will that version hold?
It looks like the remaining division is 4-3-3, so there's no real reason for anyone to stay ________-strong.
-
4
-
2
-
-
6 hours ago, Lantern7 said:
How do I tell Ben and Charlie apart? I know one of them is into rock music, but I can't remember which one.
Charlie I believe is taller, younger, and way more articulate. He's (AFAIK) the only law student/lawyer representative this season. He's tight with Maria.
Ben is the rocker dude who keeps bringing up rock bands and saying things like "this doesn't rock." and seems to be generally liked by most but does not seem to have any one person who considers him their number one, or vice versa.
-
5
-
2
-
-
18 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:
Glad the Angstrom threat has been put to rest, even if Sterling K. Brown made sure to go all out and give a hell of a performance for his last episode.
Has the Angstrom threat been put to rest? It seems like once you have a multiverse, there's an infinite number of Angstroms, at least some of which are going to have the same rage boner for Invincible and thus will come to confront "our" Invincible.
-
Few other thoughts.
Start with fewer players -- say 15. Have it be one tribe all along. For competitions, do randomized teams. Have nobody go home for the first few episodes. You could still have tribal councils if you wanted but they could be to administer some sort of penalty for the loser of the vote, Have a 12 person jury, 3 person Final Tribal Council.
Problems I'd hope to solve/improve on:
1. Basically the first few weeks of Survivor don't matter much. The people who get voted off, even though they are focuses of whole episodes, have no impact on who is the winner. Now at least they would be on the jury and have relevance that way. Players would have to factor in and potentially pay for every vote-off.
2. There are people that we do not get to know because for the first few weeks because they are never wacky enough to be featured and they do not go to Tribal. By not having eliminations for a couple weeks, there would be a better chance to get to know people.
3. Too often, the two/three tribe structure limits game play and creativity. If you're lucky to be on a dominant challenge tribe, you can have a huge leg up that snowballs, as they get reward after reward and maintain their numbers. Having to scramble for votes across 15 players and to try to make alliances among that many would be more interesting than factions among three. Watching tribes that are bad at challenges suck is not entertaining.
-
1
-
1
-
-
5 hours ago, 30 Helens said:
It's quite obvious why Q and Tevan don't like her. She's smart. She's a woman. She doesn't accept them as her lords and masters. To be sure, she would be doing a lot better if she would tone down the abrasive side of her personality, and she could use a bit more self-awareness, but I love that she takes no shit from anyone.
Speaking of women who don't want to be in the shadows, I was wondering how the "plus ones" would feel about being, well, plus ones in the Big Testosterone alliance. I'm glad to see that Maria has no interest in playing that role. I doubt Tiffany will, either.
Ridiculous. And yet another reason there is no "I" to be found at the front of Q's name. Just because Moriah admires Aubrey does not mean she's anything like her. I mean, if I were to say Ozzy is my favorite player, would that make me a legendary challenge beast? (Spoiler: it would not.)
Nobody seems to like Venus, regardless of how non-sexist they might be. I don't see Tevin as particularly sexist or unwilling to deal with smart women. I'm not saying there's not a touch of misogyny and condescension in Q's makeup. But I do think Q genuinely likes and respects Tiffany, who is smart. I think he likes and respects Kenzie, though he wisely distrusts her beyond a point.
It continually surprises me how the show regularly and overtly has Survivors scheming on gender lines, but rarely has them plotting on racial ones or sexual orientation ones. Maybe it is happening but the editors are leaving it on the cutting room floor. The +1 alliance is interestingly most of the people of color in the game, with Soda traded out for Hunter. (A seeming upgrade). I find it tough to believe that the Black Survivors don't explicitly talk about their communal experiences in the game and out (racial or otherwise) as a way to bond, or even give the head-nod.
-
4
-
1
-
-
2 minutes ago, North of Eden said:
What I don't want to see more than anything is this: It's only a matter of time before the other players completely overlook Liz and she floats to a critical point in the game...and that point is when the player finally notice her but notice her as the no vote getting GOAT they can drag to the end of the game. I want three WORTHY players at final tribal not the usual loser who makes it to the end through the combination above. Please, please, please castaways....cut this cannon fodder now as an easy vote!
90 minutes. 90 Minutes and there was no time to edit in a conversation between Moriah and Maria where she asks, "Hey! What happened to the girl's plus Charlie alliance? Why you cut Jem?" I find it hard to believe no such conversation actually took place either by Moriah asking or Maria feeling compelled to explain. I guess that wound up on the cutting room floor so we could spend a few more minutes with Tim proving he's a worthless in the +1 alliance.
I don't know if I've witnessed a F3 where all three competitors were worthy, rather than 1 heads-and-shoulders-above the rest candidate and two also-rans, or 2 close competitors and a single also-ran. Survivor superfans, what might fall in the category of 3 competitors where all three seemed viable?
I am interested to see where things go with Tim. He seems actively bad in that a) he hasn't picked up on not being Maria's No 1 or even 2 b) he didn't apparently bother to tell her about the +1 alliance in advance. But is the +1 alliance worth talking about? Does it make sense for its Nami members to allow Nami outsiders to be voted off?
24 minutes ago, jsm1125 said:“Venus has a really strong social game.” SINCE WHEN? She has no allies!
I don’t get the contempt that most of her tribe mates have for her.
Despite Tevin actively trying to get her out from pretty much day one and being a loud voice at Nami, despite her being an overt Great Value Parvati-wannabe, despite her not having any allies, despite her not being of much value at challenges, despite it making sense to vote her off this time around to keep the balance of power between old Siga and old Nami, despite her "playing too hard," she's still friggin' here.
So that must say something about her social game. Or producer interference. Or how badly Mo bungled things by essentially yelling as loud as she could "SIGA CAN'T TRUST ME AT ALL, AND I'MMA STAB THEM IN THE BACK AS SOON AS I CAN, WHICH COINCIDENTIALLY MEANS NO ONE CAN TRUST ME FROM THE OTHER TWO TRIBES EITHER, AND I DIDN'T THINK TO QUIETLY ARRANGE MY POTENTIAL BACKSTABBING FOR REASONS."
2 hours ago, LadyChatts said:Just when I think this season hit a turning point for the better, we get this episode and I'm the one scrambling to see if there's anyone left rooting for.
I think I'm on an island of one when I say I like Venus. She needs to learn to control her emotions better so she doesn't get the vote turned back around to her for real next time, but I like her.
I don't know who made Q the boss of everybody but he just acted like a condescending a*****e this week. Guess it's easy when your the one whose safe. I also don't see why Yanu felt so confident thinking Siga and Nami would be begging for their help. And I don't like Kenzie's attitude that she's just so good at this game over everyone else. Tiffany's the only one left rooting for from the Bad News Yanus.
Siga really dug themselves in a hole when they refused to commit to voting one of their own off. I can see why they all voted for Moriah in the end. Moriah maybe could have saved herself and I wish she had if she had spoken up sooner. Maybe she could have helped Venus in getting the vote turned on Charlie. Too bad she had to be so dang nice to the very people who blindsided her last week. She owed them nothing.
I really wish we could be old-school for a minute and have a traditional merge. One person wins II, everyone else is eligible to be vote for, everyone can vote. If they want to keep this format of Earn the Merge then they need to let the losers be the only ones allowed to vote, and the winners will just have to wait back at camp to see who got voted off. This just screwed Moriah over, even more than the random draw for tribes at the challenge. Could that have been anymore lopsided? Though I give the underdog Orange tribe credit, they almost beat out Purple in an upset.
I am actually open to a lot of people winning. Hunter seems likeable and smart and is a challenge beast. I am drawn to how much Q and Tiff tell it like it is, and seem to want to advise weaker players, and they bring the snark. Tevin is also a big sass-machine. I could even get behind a Venus win. The only ones I mildly dislike are Ben (the whole rock-and-roller thing seems a lot forced, but maybe that is just who he is) and Liz (she just seems like an odd duck who's not contributing to my entertainment while watching). Soda I could take or leave.
A classic situation in Survivor is when there are two factions of about equal size/power and a smaller faction in between then become the swing vote. It can make sense for the two larger tribes to agree to wipe out the smaller faction and then settle things between them at future tribals. But generally it seems like it would be hard to pull that off because there's the risk of Tribe 1 running to people at Tribe 3 and saying "Tribe 2 is looking to vote a member of Tribe 3 off." Which would/should lead to Tribe 3 siding with Tribe 1. So as far as I can think of, it's almost always the middle tribe has a lot of power. This was even more pronounced this time because all the Yanus were safe. Which meant that the other two tribes were incentivized to try to woo the swing votes in Yanu to get rid of a member of the other tribe.
Praise be to Peachy that they haven't tried resurrecting the "Turn Back Time" advantage. THAT was some bullshit.
-
5
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, shrewd.buddha said:
Evans and Ye made a lot of ridiculous assumptions about what the San-Ti would do when arriving on Earth. If you don't trust your fellow human beings, why would you think an alien entity would have any altruistic plans for any life on Earth?
I could see reasons why someone in a vacuum might jump to the conclusion that a civilization that has mastered space travel would be more sophisticated/enlightened than ours. or maybe even that given the way our civilization is going, we are going to wipe ourselves out in another century or so, so it's worth risking that the alien civilization might do better for us because they certainly can't do much worse.
But when Ye is expressly told by an alien: Don't contact us again because my people are conquerors who will mess you up, it would have been nice to have more on Ye's decision to say "Nah, we're good. Come conquer us."
-
2
-
-
15 hours ago, marinw said:
The San Ti already know all there is to know about humans. How would a frozen head increase their knowledge or empathy?
If we are to take the "We would like to speak to the Big Bad Wolf to better understand" discussion at face value, the San-Ti have a lot of data about humans but not a lot of comprehension of what makes us tick, abstract concepts, etc.
They also seemingly have not interacted directly with anyone besides Wade this last episode who is less than worshipful towards them, and possibly no one directly outside of Ye, Evans and now Tatiana. A lot of their preconceptions of humans might be set not by all the data they have access to but rather the personal interactions they have yet to have.
There's also the potential issue where a big enough number is a mere statistic, but a singular case can be a tragedy.
The San-Ti are very focused on the concept of survival. The notion that a frozen head can be resurrected and talk about such things as his love for Jin, and that he didn't go through all the means at his disposal to survive might be utterly foreign and fascinating to them.
-
2
-
-
2 hours ago, aghst said:
I think it makes sense for Ye to be religious. She made a leap as a young woman to invite them, offering to help them.
She had a reason to have a chip against the world. And to carry that on for decades, through major life events like moving to the UK, having a child, you have to have some faith to sustain all of it.
Evans wanted to save birds. I don't know why he'd think the San Ti would care about his concerns, which is roughly the environment?
But apparently he inherited an oil kingdom and continued to let it make a fortune for him so that he could set up that tanker with all those people inside and a big dish to communicate with the "Lord."
I don't know, that's a weird trajectory. Why did they become true believers.
Would like to see a back story for Tatiana, the warrior for the cause, who's killed how many? What made her do the things she's doing now?
I don't want it to become Lost, which spammed you with back stories just to keep the show going for as many seasons as they could for $$$.
But they're trying to do some character development, why are these traitors so hardcore? What made them true believers? Because the San Ti might be like that mini series from the '80s, where the aliens promised to give humans cures and technology but it turned out they just wanted to feed on them.
Did the San Ti make promises to make the world better? That would probably be deception, which they're not capable of doing, right?
I wouldn't mind having backstories fleshed out for many of the characters in 3BP. The problem with Lost IMO wasn't the flashbacks/flashforwards, but rather that the powers that be didn't really have consistency in their vision and were making everything up as they went along about the multiple mysteries and nothing really made sense or mattered in the end. 3BP is based on novels so as much as the showrunners might play with things or try to stretch things out, there's at least a beginning, middle and end for them to shoot for.
We were told a bunch of things about our heroes, but I don't think we were shown them.
Will's character was described that he was smart but not willing to take risks professionally or romantically. I don't remember seeing that love/longing from Will in the scenes we saw with Jin, just having a character say "You should go for it." Nor do I think they helped show what Will loves about Jin. Did Jin have a clue that Will was in love with her until he basically killed himself?
It was implied that Auggie and Saul had been an item, and Jin suggested that Auggie even loved Saul as much as Jin apparently loved her. But aside from Auggie trying to call Saul to support her about the winking and that other time only be disgusted that he had just been banging someone else, there didn't seem to be that sort of love there.
What made Jack go from a high level physics genius to a snack entrepreneur?
I know against the backdrop of alien intrigue and ongoing action, these sorts of things are relatively unimportant. But it's by fleshing out the characters IMO that the rest of the elements will get enhanced. Yes, knowing more about who Saul, Auggie and Jin really are and how they came to be that way will make them dodging the alien threats more interesting.
-
1
-
-
So I binged the season and will probably be back for S2, but there are quite a few things I am wondering about. If the books answer them, please put it behind spoiler tags.
1. Were the San-Ti actually ignorant of the concept of lies until 2024-ish? I think we are supposed to take it at face value that they were, but I am not sure how to reconcile that with having had communications with humans going back to the 80s, with supercomputers that soaked up all of what was going on since there would have been ample documentation of people lying, texts about lies, etc. Indeed, the whole 3 Body Problem VR game is effectively a lie, the whole "stop your work or bad things will happen to you" is a lie, their appearing human when that is not how they appear is a lie, etc.
2. The 3 Body Problem VR game doesn't really make much sense to me either. I can get behind the notion that it was never about trying to solve the 3 Body Problem since the problem is apparently insolvable, and since the San-Ti had already decided to come to Earth anyway. But there has to be an easier way to recruit people into the cult than to see how quickly they could realize that the 3 Body Problem can't be solved. Why does the cult need people smart enough to figure that out, rather than as many people as possible? In fact, shouldn't the cult as a long-term goal be getting rid of smart scientific types who could possibly mount a defense to the San-Ti?
3. It makes little sense to me that given all the tools at its disposal, the cult straight-up murdered Jack the way they did for refusing to join and trying to tell someone about them. Especially when they full-on revealed themselves like a week or two later. It would be relatively easy to discredit Jack's attempt to say that there are aliens among us by driving him crazy, putting whatever they want in his digital records to undermine his story, etc. If he had to be killed, there are probably a half-dozen ways that they could have done it without raising any suspicions of foul play. Other than to show that the cult was mwa-ha-ha evil, not sure why it was done.
4. One of the things I am unclear on was how and why the humans came to think of the San-Ti in religious terms. It seems odd that a daughter of Communist China and a son of a high-powered capitalist thought of things as their "Lord" and would continue to use that sort of language (and if the San-Ti are 100 percent on the truth train, that the San-Ti would have let them build up this zealotry). I think I would have enjoyed this much more if the bad guys were simply making the rational calculation that siding with the San-Ti was the best thing for not just humans but also the rest of life on Earth.
5. It seems like the anti-alien forces were fairly incompetent. I can get that they were slow at first when there's only a suspicion of alien involvement and/or do not have the full sense of what is going on. But the raid at the summit was super-ham fisted, as Ye pointed out. It would have been way smarter to have Jin see how deep she could get in the organization, generate leads that way, etc. But given that they raided the Summit and got a number of its members in custody, it should have been fairly simple to flip at least some of the hundred or so people there. And even if you couldn't turn any of those people, it should have been feasible to use standard investigative techniques to learn more about the cult and the aliens at that point. Releasing Ye (or anyone else) because she has not committed any crime is beyond ridiculous because she has committed numerous crimes under current laws (including conspiracy to murder) and more to the point, it is not as though Wade would be above using a little extraordinary rendition on someone who was a traitor to the human race. But Tatiana escaping the raid on the Summit, never getting caught, being able to fly to frigging China in time to kill Ye and back seems -- even with the help of the San-Ti, a pretty big stretch.
6. I am not sure why the pro-alien forces didn't do things differently either. Why not go down some variation of the V route and offer the upsides of welcoming their new alien overlords fairly openly? Probably more than half of the 7 billion on Earth would be excited about the sort of world that the aliens could promise: VR headsets that could put people in paradises, quantum supercomputers that could solve problems, advances in space travel, etc. Or if there was too much uncertainty about how Earth might receive the aliens, there are probably more effective ways to undermine technological progress than to make a few dozen scientists stop what they are doing or drive them mad. Especially when there are other scientists to potentially pick up the work. It seems impossible, for instance, that Auggie could be like "we're pausing this nanofber deal" and that someone would not have stepped up. Indeed, now that the conspiracy is in the open, it seems like it will backfire and that Earth will pour lots of resources into the specific scientific areas the San-Ti was targeting. It seems like the whole countdown approach would inevitably lead people to say something about it to others, which would lead to the notion that this simply couldn't happen with the current state of our technology, which would lead to suspect aliens, which would probably be counterproductive.
-
4
-
1
-
S46 Ep. 10 "Run the Red Light"
in Survivor
I wonder how much Applebee's pays for the right to be the provider of the reward. My guess is $1-2 million. Whatever it was, they got their money's worth this episode. Probably more people talking Applebee's this week than any corresponding week in the last few years.