S48.E07: Survivor Smack Talk

[Fake Jan Brady]

I realise David is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way but as long as he keeps doing stuff like this I'm happy for him to stay. [Why yes, I am deeply superficial]

[iMonrey]

8 hours ago, Duke Silver said:

If I was on that island with the second group, my main reason for wanting to get rid of Cedrek would be so I wouldn't be stuck with him as a partner or team member in any upcoming challenges.  Ced seems like a nice enough fellow, but what in the hell was he actually good at (Survivor-related)?  Nothing as far as I can tell.

Yeah. He was the main reason Vulu was whittled down to three people and yet they chose to vote out stronger players because they were playing the long game instead of the immediate game. But - you can't really play the long game successfully anymore because the show keeps changing the rules. Merge? Nope! We're splitting you into two random groups. Merged now? Nope! We're splitting you up into two random groups again. I wouldn't want to be stuck with that loser either, because who knows what stupid gimmick this show is going to come up with next.

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

Survivor has always been a little unfair, so I’m not sure how this challenge was any unfair than any other challenge  

In an era where it seems like every challenge is some combination of obstacle course plus puzzle, this one was heavily weighted in favor of the gym rats. I thought it was unfair to the women, but not necessarily to Cedrek, because he sucked at everything.

Cedrek seems like a nice enough guy, but if I were taken to a hospital and told my surgeon was Cedrek? I'd demand to be taken to another hospital. I'd be interested to know more about his career. Being a surgeon doesn't necessarily mean you're smart, y'know. It's why there are malpractice suits.

[JudyObscure]

9 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I thought it was unfair to the women,

It was.  With the buckets carrying 25% of the contestants starting weight it seemed fair, but a woman's body weight consists of far less muscle than a man's. 

This would have been a good time to have the woman and men separated with a winner from each side.  There still would have been two tribal councils.

[dsteele]

"I would have won if they hadn't voted me out."

Also true:
"I would have won the Kentucky Derby if they had just let me ride the horse"

[tv echo]

IIRC, in a previous season, there was a challenge that favored people with smaller feet because you had to balance on an increasingly smaller step or ledge. So I think that it's hard to have a challenge that favors everyone equally.

[Notabug]

1 hour ago, JudyObscure said:

It was.  With the buckets carrying 25% of the contestants starting weight it seemed fair, but a woman's body weight consists of far less muscle than a man's. 

This would have been a good time to have the woman and men separated with a winner from each side.  There still would have been two tribal councils.

Yes, these strength challenges are inherently unfair to women. Even a woman who works out regularly and does strength training is not going to have the same muscle mass as a man at the same weight.  Women simply do not have the same physiology.  It would be fairer to calculate everyone's muscle mass and base the weight challenge on that.  Or, better yet, skip the strength challenges altogether.

2 minutes ago, tv echo said:

IIRC, in a previous season, there was a challenge that favored people with smaller feet because you had to balance on an increasingly smaller step or ledge. So I think that it's hard to have a challenge that favors everyone equally.

I think the best we can hope for is that the challenges are fairly evenly distributed so that everyone can play to their strengths at some point.

It's sort of like in sports, you don't see many NBA players under 6 feet tall.  There are no short and skinny linebackers in the NFL.  Michael Phelps won a zillion gold medals at least in part because he had the perfect body type and unusually long arms for swimming.  Simone Biles is compact and muscular which is an asset in gymnastics.

[fishcakes]

14 hours ago, eel2178 said:

I have known plenty of surgeons who are fully incapable of interacting with another human being unless that person was fully anesthetized, intubated and ventilator dependent. They don't realize that it is necessary to have a separate skill set to deal with patients who aren't currently under anesthesia.  

I've known a few surgeons and they all seem a bit off socially. Either they're awkward or aloof or seem humorless. Generally, once you get to know them, they loosen up and warm up, but I think it takes a certain kind of personality -- a more detached one, I think -- to be able to cut into people.

13 hours ago, Blip said:

During the challenge Joe said things such as, "All I want to do is ___ing eat" and "I am so ____ing hungry".  After the challenge he was saying that thinking of his children is what motivated him to last so long.

Yes! He has to spin things like he's always thinking of the kids and making himself a good example, but he would know that, "I taught my children how to be successful in life by holding up  a bucket," is actually kind of stupid if he stopped to think about it for a minute. It's fine for him to say he wanted peanut butter and jelly! Not everything has to be a life lesson.

[seacliffsal]

As for the challenge-I am so tired of obstacle courses and puzzles that I applaud challenges that test strength, endurance, balance, etc., all of which allow for different skill sets/ abilities to perform well at one time or another.  

Why not have a fishing challenge at some point?  All teams at the same location with the same equipment?  It also would not favor one gender or body type over another.  And the reward would be that they got to eat their fish.

 

[PaperTree]

13 hours ago, Fake Jan Brady said:

I realise David is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way but as long as he keeps doing stuff like this I'm happy for him to stay. [Why yes, I am deeply superficial]

 

He's pretty, but an azzhole.  

Love how "twit" is in your photo post edit!

[PaperTree]

12 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Being a surgeon doesn't necessarily mean you're smart, y'know. It's why there are malpractice suits.

Frank Burns

Now for all we know Cedrick could be very good at his very specialized field.

I've had some great doctors that couldn't screw in a light bulb

[Blip]

All challenges favor somebody because people have varying levels of abilities. In this challenge 8 people were out within about 10 minutes (definitely within 15 minutes, since Jeff mentioned the time a few minutes after #8 dropped out). The winner was still going strong after 52 minutes, which seems like too much of a mismatch.

I am OK with them having challenges that favor various strength and abilities, as long as everyone is treated equally, but I don't think it is fair to handicap it based body weight, as if that equalizes everybody.  Next thing you know, they will be giving the poor swimmers a head start, and those bad at puzzles will be given a half solved puzzle.  I think the point of so many puzzle or ball maze challenges is that those don't give an obvious advantage to the good athletes.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Any challenge that has a balance beam component favors most women because their feet are smaller and they have a lower center of gravity.

That being said, I agree upthread that the two groups for this challenge should have been all men and all women.

[Chicago Redshirt]

Here's an exit interview with Cedrek.

It reminded me that Cedrek also got someone voted out when he realized she was voteless. So again, very bad at challenges, but he wasn't devoid of skills. Or at least, I don't think anyone pivotal to getting someone sent packing is terrible at Survivor. 

https://parade.com/tv/cedrek-mcfadden-survivor-48-eliminated-interview

[Nashville]

18 hours ago, iMonrey said:

In an era where it seems like every challenge is some combination of obstacle course plus puzzle, this one was heavily weighted in favor of the gym rats. I thought it was unfair to the women, but not necessarily to Cedrek, because he sucked at everything.

This statement confuses me; a 120 lb woman would have 30 lbs hanging in her bucket, while a 220 lb man would have to support 55 lbs - but this almost-2x differential favors the guy??? Or is it the default assumption that any comps with any degree of endurance or physical exertion favor males by definition?  Because - to me at least - such an assumption seems incredibly sexist.

 

18 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Cedrek seems like a nice enough guy, but if I were taken to a hospital and told my surgeon was Cedrek? I'd demand to be taken to another hospital. I'd be interested to know more about his career. Being a surgeon doesn't necessarily mean you're smart, y'know. It's why there are malpractice suits.

I’m reminded of an oldie-but-goody:

Q: What do you call the guy who graduated last in his class at medical school?

A: “Doctor”.

[Blip]

2 hours ago, Nashville said:

Q: What do you call the guy who graduated last in his class at medical school?

"...guy...  his..." Speaking of sexist.

The way they tried to even things out by giving 25% of body weight was clearly a big fail, since two players lasted over 5 times longer than most of them.

My memory of past seasons is not so great, but seems to me that there were many people who were far worse than Cedrick.  Cedrick even made it to jury despite being on the losing team in most challenges.

[Nashville]

8 hours ago, Blip said:

"...guy...  his..." Speaking of sexist.

I plead guilty to assuming the dumbest hack in the class would be male. 😁

[Diana Berry]

On 4/11/2025 at 12:34 PM, PaperTree said:

Frank Burns

Now for all we know Cedrick could be very good at his very specialized field.

I've had some great doctors that couldn't screw in a light bulb

He seems like a very nice man.  I’m sure he’s all business in the operating room.

[iMonrey]

On 4/12/2025 at 11:05 PM, Diana Berry said:

He seems like a very nice man.  I’m sure he’s all business in the operating room.

Nobody's debating his niceness. It's his intelligence we're questioning. I dunno. I'm not especially inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt based on what I've seen of him on this show. It seems contradictory to say "well, he's an idiot, but he's probably really good at his job." As I posted earlier, if I wound up at a hospital and was told he was my surgeon, I'd ask for a different surgeon.

[blackwing]

On 4/11/2025 at 12:56 PM, Tachi Rocinante said:

Any challenge that has a balance beam component favors most women because their feet are smaller and they have a lower center of gravity.

That being said, I agree upthread that the two groups for this challenge should have been all men and all women.

I think the issue with dividing the groups into men and women would be then people would claim the challenge was rigged in favor of Eva, since there is no other woman this season that even seems close to Eva in terms of physical ability.

As I've said, every challenge is inherently unfair to some people.  It's just that some are more obvious that others.  I think that's why we have seen so many "obstacle course ending in puzzle" challenges, that rely on two sets of skills.

This challenge, since some would have next to zero chance (looking at Cedrek), I think there should have been a "you can opt out and enjoy this delicious bucket of food" option.

[Taeolas]

Personally, as long as the group(s) are big enough, I don't mind challenges being a bit unbalanced towards one skillset or another, as long as there is a variety of challenges that tend to favour different people each time. 

When the groups are big enough, losing a challenge isn't the end of the world, as long as your overall social game is strong enough. Sometimes you may feel you NEED to win the challenge because you're feeling the social game is turning against you; but generally speaking, immunity wins early on are just additional targets on your back. 

Towards the end of the game when the tribe is smaller and there's no room to hide any more, the immunity challenges are much more important and they should try to do their best to keep them fairer in general, either by testing multiple skills or not being too favourable to a body type or sex one way or another. 

[rr2911]

I read that Probst will not bring back challenges that pit teams head to head against each other.  Apparently some time ago, things got a bit chippy and the show decided they didn't want to go in that direction.  There has been injuries in the past from these type of challenges.

I for one would like to see these head to head challenges back but I understand Probst's reasons.

I think the Survivor crew could come up with a head to head challenge that will stray away from the physicality.  Like one team trying to shoot a ball in a basket while the other team attempts to swat the ball away with a giant paddle or swatter.

What do ya'll think?

[Blip]

5 hours ago, rr2911 said:

I read that Probst will not bring back challenges that pit teams head to head against each other. 

What do you mean by "head to head" challenges? Do teams racing against each other count? I guess you mean challenges were members from different teams interact with each other during the challenge.

I never liked the challenges were people were pretty much fighting or wrestling each other, and they haven't had any of those in a while. Aside from my dislike of watching untrained fighters battle it out, it was never clear what tactics were permissible during such challenges, and it could end up having body slams and hair pulling, but probably no biting allowed.

[Nashville]

I do miss the challenge of two teams of roped-together players chasing each other around a circle, with the winner being the one who caught up to the other; it was simple, it was direct, and it beat the everlovin’ shit out of them. 😁

[Lantern7]

Erik’s take on the episode, “The Obsessed”:

Edited April 16 by Lantern7

[Taeolas]

8 hours ago, Blip said:

What do you mean by "head to head" challenges? Do teams racing against each other count? I guess you mean challenges were members from different teams interact with each other during the challenge.

I never liked the challenges were people were pretty much fighting or wrestling each other, and they haven't had any of those in a while. Aside from my dislike of watching untrained fighters battle it out, it was never clear what tactics were permissible during such challenges, and it could end up having body slams and hair pulling, but probably no biting allowed.

 

Sounds like they mean just that. Challenges that are basically sports; where one team directly competes against another team, like Soccer or Volleyball. One team is able to directly influence how well the other team does.

 

What we have now are more Side by Side or Race challenges, where the teams race, but they have no way (other than peer pressure) to affect how well/not well the other team does; they can't shove dirt into the pile the other team is digging through, or knock puzzle pieces off the table of the other team or things like that. 

[rr2911]

11 hours ago, Blip said:

What do you mean by "head to head" challenges? Do teams racing against each other count? I guess you mean challenges were members from different teams interact with each other during the challenge.

I never liked the challenges were people were pretty much fighting or wrestling each other, and they haven't had any of those in a while. Aside from my dislike of watching untrained fighters battle it out, it was never clear what tactics were permissible during such challenges, and it could end up having body slams and hair pulling, but probably no biting allowed.

Head to head is a term that refers to 2 teams or individuals competing against each other.

 

[tv echo]

Just posted EW article in the media thread about Jeff Probst explaining why Survivor no longer does "combat challenges."

Edited April 16 by tv echo

[fishcakes]

I say they should bring back the Piranha challenge, which was disgusting, but also hilarious/cruel since IIRC I don't think they let the winners keep the meat. It also featured the accidental kiss between Heidi and Roger, and I honestly don't know which of them I feel more sorry for.

 

[momlyd]

I thought I saw a couple ropes snap. Did that happen or was I seeing something else?

[SummerDreams]

Ok so I'm VERY late to the game but I binge-watched 7 episodes, i haven't read anything of what you've written yet, but I got to say my hatred for Joe and Eva (she has my mom's name) is growing by the second.

I predict one of the "strong" alliance people will win and I don't care to watch that. I'm out. Have fun 😙