I will be honest up front that this is going to be a unique blog because as I sit on my couch writing, my mind Read the full post.
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As Survivor is a game of changes from season to season to keep it fresh, a change that seems to have affected the ideals of Survivor is wrong. The idea is to be stranded with what you came with. The only way to improvce that lot in the game is through being challenged, winning and then getting a reward. The idea of getting fresh clothing i.e. swimsuits, for no work, seems contradictory, other than to boost the ratings. Secondly Ben with his gameplay is decimating the tribe. In order to be strong in challenges you (partly) need good morale to be strong as a team. With Ben’s steategy, the morale is always knocked down etc due to playing everyboby against teammates. One last comment? What is up with the combined Reward/Immunity challenges. Part of winning reward is that it boosts your morale, and strenthens you as a team to help in the immunity challenge. Foa Foa, if they were to win a reward challenge on it’s own, could be strengthened for Immunity.
Jeff – Thanx for the blogs as they are always insightful and I will keep on enjoying and watching this season.
Actually, David, leaving players in their dirty underwear is a relatively recent change to the game. In the earlier episodes, they came with a personal kit or backpack, which included socks, maybe a change of underwear, sneakers, swimsuits and an item of personal choice (such as: Bibles, paints, jewelry, reading glasses, diaries, family photos, etc.), and people came dressed for the challenge, in sturdy, practical clothes. They also had a whole lot less food provided or available….which led to some pretty lethargic playing. Over the seasons, less and less clothing has been encouraged (so that now we are forced to gag thru the saggy undies), but more food….all in aid of livelier challenges and more camera blurring eye candy. =P
Why don’t they just rename this thing “The Russell Show”?? Seriously, enough already!! I was amused watching the opening credits – apparently there is a Kelly, and a Monica, and an Erik, and a Laura and a Brett and a Dave. Who ARE these people?? Why won’t they ever show the purple team for more than 10 seconds?? Oh right, the producers are idiots.
Jeff, We need MORE than just sociopathic Russell and ignorant Ben!!! First and most importantly when are we going to get TWO challenges a week? The challenges this season are great, don’t get me wrong, but I miss the days of separate reward and immunity challenges. Please don’t tell us that they’re going to combine them each week so we get even more time to be bored by Foa Foa. And secondly… do the producers know that there is another tribe? Finally, who is this Brett person? Was he a random guy who wandered up just at the moment when you were filming the challenge and just happened to be wearing purple so Galu decided to sit him out? I honestly don’t think I’ve seen him in the 3 episodes so far and he’s suspiciously missing in the 4 minutes of Galu footage you guys show each week. Still love you and the show, but the Foa Foa show is wearing kinda thin…
CBS.com puts up scenes that never make it to the actual show. Every week there have been scenes with the members of Galu on the website. And every scene is insanely boring. They won’t get interesting until they have to vote someone out.
LOVE THE BLOG JEFF
Could be wrong… but it appears obvious that the total focus of the show being Foa Foa and Evil Russell comes down to 2 elements:
The obvious… this is where the game, action, controversy and most interesting character/personality interaction is occurring. Foa Foa = compelling stories… Galu = yawn fest…
Starting to think though that Evil Russell won’t make it to the half way point though. The producers have to air and focus on the gems that ER is serving up… while they have them. If they wasted time on 90210, swim suit models and the weirdo in leg warmers… they can’t go back with ER antics once he’s gone.
I saw one brief editing/camera play that I’m hoping was a tip to things to come… Some sort of show-down between Shambo and ER. There was a brief shot of Shambo talking and breakaway to Russell with look on his face of contempt and you could tell his brain was going nuts… how the heck would I deal with her.
A tribal member shuffle between tribes could really get this season going… and make it more interesting for the “unknown” cast members.
loved this episode and elimination but i had a hint from one of your past statements in your Ep1 blog. when you said “i dont know Ben well enough” that gave me a hint that he was an early boot. but i dont mind it made me happy.
and also, have to say this haha…
PLEASE SUGGEST A SECOND CHANCE SEASON.
so many survivors deserve another chance,
Betsy, Marisa, Ben, Ace, Michelle (gabon), Dan, Tracy (FvF) plus lots more lol.
PS have another Chad on Survivor that will play strategically and isnt boring LOL
PPS apparently there is a guy on the show called Brett? hopefully there will be some comfirmation in the next episode of that
Mick (MickDreamy) is a good player as well. I like the way he got appointed the leader and then smoothly stepped aside and let Evil Russell take the leadership role. Watch for Mick to be a strong player in the stretch.
Watch for Jaison to turn on Mick next. Jaison hates and resents all strong white men
T.K. I know that is your opinion, but I don’t believe that to be true about Jaison.
Ben? That you?
Foa Foa is in big trouble. They are now down to 6 players. Unless the producers reshuffle the tribes, It is extremely likely that Foa Foa will be the minority tribe at the merge. This puts everyone on the Foa Foa tribe at a serious handicap to win the game.
First off, I’d like to send my thoughts and prayers to the people of Samoa.
Now, I find this episode more amusing than last weeks. The focus was taken out from Russell (who was tolerable this week) to the outgoing castaway Ben. I think casting was looking for someone who won’t last long, yet memorable–and we got Ben. Kudos to Jaison for standing up to Ben, not alot of people will do that w/ 1 mil on the line. I’m just glad that Ben’s gone. Obviously, Jaison will pay for thwarting Russell’s plans……..
I have not seen any tribe dynamics brewing at Galu. They’re doing yoga? WTF? Don’t they know that the tribes might get shuffled or even merged? They’ve got it so good that I believe that Russell will easily demolish them.
I just wanna know–how come the women are the only ones who were given new bathing suits!?!?! I don’t wanna see dirty men in their stained underwear that they wore for multiple days!!!! They make challenges less apetizing to watch.
And finally, my prediction streak came to an end. I wanted Ben gone, but not this soon. I actually thought Galu would finally lose and send home Monica. I thought–hmm…Carolina, Brianna, Paloma, Jessie and Cecilia–their young, their latin and they never got passed episode 3. I guess I’m wrong–let’s hope she does get surpasse Liliana by making it next week and she’ll make Survivor history.
I thought the episode was a lot more balanced this week. I do wish we were seeing more stuff on survival – where is their water source? What are they eating? Seems pretty easy out there so far. Loved tribal council. And you have to give credit where credit is due – Evil Russell did back off. However, he did it at the behest of other alpha males he respects. No way on earth he’d back off anything at the request of a woman. Did anybody else think it was hilarious when Shambo increasingly disappeared into the tree, and nobody made a comment? Thanks again for blogging, Jeff.
Just because Russell went with the majority doesn’t make his gameplay any more layered of sophisticated. His tribe voted off Marisa and Betsy because they wanted to. He happened to agree with those choices, but it’s not like he had to do any serious convincing to ultimately get them to do it. Jeff has the benefit of knowing stuff that went down and we haven’t seen yet, so maybe there’s a reason he’s all up in the Evil Russell Kool-Aid, but I’m not buying it.
As a viewer I almost like ER on the show? Who is his next target? Will this weeks plan work? Will the tribe come together and win? Will somebody figure ER out and open others eyes?
But I tend to pretend vote as if I were on the island. What would best help the tribe at counsel that night. That is why my votes would have been ER & Ben first. If they had rid themselves of those two, tonight may not have been the third in a row. Ben was not worthless at challenges, but he did not constructively contribute to winning the thing. Last week he takes a cheap shot at GR and gets tossed leaving two of the smallest members to go against three form Galu. Last night he twice failed to commit to going after one oncomer, as a result Galu players went by him both times. Hell Ashley got in there and tied her agressors up for a little bit.
How can Foa Foa members not see ER going member to member and making promises. You can see others in the background of some of the shots. “Wait a minute, he just talked to me and shook my hand. What is he doing with XXX and doing the same thing?”, “Now he is over with YYY doing it again.” “Hey ZZZ did ER approach you with secret squirrel stuff? Yea, me too. I also saw him talking to XXX and YYY, I think about the same stuff.” Their own fault for not being able to add thing together and see what is right in front of them.
Jeff, I’d like your thoughts on Russell’s hidden immunity idol strategy. Conventional wisdom has always been (at least from experience in previous seasons) that it is better to keep the fact that you have the hidden immunity idol under wraps.
Russell, on the other hand, seems to be using it to buy the trust of a select few people. Do you see this as a wise move in the long-run, or is Russell too focused on the short-term and making a mistake?
Nice for Survivor to spring for bathing suits. About time…
Russell has been playing the game, period. His decision to change course this evening just supports that old saying “you’ve got to know when to hold’em; know when to fold’em” — he’s there to play, albeit hugely arrogant, but he watches, observes, and more often than not, right…and it can still go either way for him, but it will be interesting to see how he ‘survives.’ He’s smart.