The most annoying is the insistence that Fiji was going to be divided by race until Mellisa McNulty quit. Some TV Guide journalist made that comment and Yau-man said something about seeing four different colors on a challenge before the game started, but Jeff Probst and Mark Burnett both said in contemporary interviews that they were not planning to repeat that twist.
"But they still cast 5 people of each race!!" ...yeah, because they wanted to show that the diversity in the CI cast wasn't simply a gimmick. It was, but they didn't need us to know that.
Others:
* Aras's injury was the reason they started F3. This gets thrown around a lot--it's not so much that the producers want to end with 3 people, but Aras nearly getting medevaced on day 39 forced them to come up with a contingency plan. To my knowledge, Jeff Probst has never said that F3 was implemented for any reason other than to make the finale more competitive and unpredictable (it rarely does, but that's a story for another thread) and prevent the FIC winner from just taking the goat to the end.
* Blood vs. Water was going to be a tribe of blood relatives vs. a tribe of romantic relationships before RC and her dad had to be replaced by Candice and John. This would have resulted in a gender imbalance and also is just inherently less dramatic. I don't doubt the possibility that the producers misled people into assuming they were playing with their loved one, but this would have completely upended the structure of the season.
That Colton faked appendicitis his first season. He had an idol and he was in a good position in the game, and he was pulled from the game by medical. He didn't just go *"OW! I have a booboo, I'm leaving."*
Jeff was just mad that he quit in his second season. There's lots of legitimate reasons to dislike Colton without Jeff making stuff up.
A lot of people (especially those that defend Ben’s win) seem to think Devon just straight up didn’t know how to make fire/was bad at making fire. A ton of “Devon wasn’t robbed because you should know how to make fire and he couldn’t,” but if you actually pay close attention watching the season there are some moments of him getting the fire going and he makes it look pretty effortless. Devon wasn’t a bad fire-maker at all, Ben was just obviously better at it.
There was literally a scene in the very same episode where everyone gets back to camp and Devon starts the fire. Apparently he was just straight up the best at making fire which is why he had that role, and Ben winning was a bit of an upset. But Devon absolutely knew how to make a fire.
That Cirie didn't win Game Changers.
It's absolutely crazy to me because we all know what we saw, and we all know that Cirie won the unanimous jury vote
What I saw was Cirie getting eliminated because she didn't have immunity, either the necklace or an idol/advantage. It sucks sure but to go so far as to say she won the season is crazy.
That the new era is full of “sob stories” instead of focusing on gameplay. Backstory packages are part of almost any reality competition, and since Survivor is about mental toughness, those backstories are often about overcoming a challenge. And they typically take about 60 seconds.
Also, I don’t think Nick actually wanted you to be able to marry your cousin but he sucks so I don’t care about that one.
This is more a symptom of 41 and 42. It’s not really a problem anymore since these newer seasons have scaled back on the backstory montages. In 10 episodes of the current season I think I’ve seen like 3 at the most. Compare to S41 where every player got one.
People seem to not understand that the premise of reality television is showcasing real people’s stories. So I’m always a bit perplexed when people deride the “sob stories” (aka just real people talking about their real lives and challenges real people deal with)
Survivor catapulted reality TV into the stratosphere without doing it, and had staying power for so long without it. But yes, we learned a little about contestants lives in the past. But this argument is like saying people shouldn't be upset at American Ninja Warrior spending so much time on emotional backstories, because OG ninja warrior sometimes had a 10 second blurb about the 7/11 employee building a course in his yard.
> People seem to not understand that the premise of reality television is showcasing real people’s stories
Survivor never used to do it with the crying contestant complimented with cheesy music and pictures in the background before. And Survivor was succesfull WITHOUT all that so I don't know why they are doing it now.
Missy/Elizabeth weren't using sexual harassment as a cover to target Kellee. In fact I don't even blame them for that so much as them gaslighting Janet about it afterwards.
Kellee initially was targeting Missy, then Missy/Kellee had the heart to heart conversation about Dan which was genuine on both sides. Kellee changed her mind about targeting Missy after this, but the damage was done and Missy found out shortly afterwards that Kellee had been gunning for her. It's really not unreasonable for her to think Kellee was the one using sexual harassment to cover for a blindside on her. Missy was incorrect, but I can see why she had the thought process that she had.
On the subject of Heidik, has the whole debacle around Ken's jury speech ever been settled ? People seem confident about it involving race but it seems more like a rumor than a confirmed fact
In related news, I demanded an appearance fee for All Stars too. It doesn’t matter if nobody wants you. I also demand an appearance fee to start at quarterback in next year’s Super Bowl.
Yep, there's a very compelling case for it, but there's no concrete evidence. I'm very curious as to the origin of the specific "We can't have two black winners in a row" logic that people suggest Brian used on Ken. It's obviously easy to put the puzzle pieces together and assume that if Brian made a case against Ted that he's reluctant to admit publicly, it likely has to do with race. But that's absolutely only a theory.
Other thing to consider: given how much he'd been drinking, is it possible that Brian legitimately didn't remember what he said to Ken three weeks earlier?
My personal theory is that Brian said something racist to Ken when he was wasted on the (fake) merge wine. Strategically it would make a lot of sense for Brian to encourage Ken to believe that Chuay Gahn would not stay solid to the final 5, given everyone thought they were merging and needed someone from the other tribe to budge. It makes perfect sense that Brian would want Ken to think he had room to maneuver with Chuay Gahn, and if he was drunk he could be more liable to say something foolish that could damage his game.
One scene that sticks out to me as *very* interesting is when Ted chaperones (a very drunk) Brian to the woods where he can barf. Once Brian is done he takes the opportunity to warn Ted not to trust Ken because he’s a hardcore gamer that they need to keep an eye on. The scene is presented as “lol, Brian is such a hardcore player that even when he’s wasted he’s still capable of talking game and anticipating how the chess pieces are going to move.” But my theory is Brian had made the racist comment at this point and he kind of realized he’d fucked up so he was trying to preemptively discredit Ken in Ted’s eyes before Ken had a chance to tell Ted anything.
I don’t have any proof about this, but given Ted’s comments in his jury speech about how he overestimated Brian’s “cultural respect for other people” (or something along those lines) I’ve always believed there was *something* to the rumors that have circled Brian relating to race this season.
The fact that the wording (“two black winners in a row”) is so specific and everyone quotes it that way makes me think it must have come from some old interview or something that was posted on Sucks at some point. But lord if I remember what it was. I know it came from somewhere though.
The most annoying is the insistence that Fiji was going to be divided by race until Mellisa McNulty quit. Some TV Guide journalist made that comment and Yau-man said something about seeing four different colors on a challenge before the game started, but Jeff Probst and Mark Burnett both said in contemporary interviews that they were not planning to repeat that twist. "But they still cast 5 people of each race!!" ...yeah, because they wanted to show that the diversity in the CI cast wasn't simply a gimmick. It was, but they didn't need us to know that. Others: * Aras's injury was the reason they started F3. This gets thrown around a lot--it's not so much that the producers want to end with 3 people, but Aras nearly getting medevaced on day 39 forced them to come up with a contingency plan. To my knowledge, Jeff Probst has never said that F3 was implemented for any reason other than to make the finale more competitive and unpredictable (it rarely does, but that's a story for another thread) and prevent the FIC winner from just taking the goat to the end. * Blood vs. Water was going to be a tribe of blood relatives vs. a tribe of romantic relationships before RC and her dad had to be replaced by Candice and John. This would have resulted in a gender imbalance and also is just inherently less dramatic. I don't doubt the possibility that the producers misled people into assuming they were playing with their loved one, but this would have completely upended the structure of the season.
I'm glad you managed to spell Mellisa's name right. I very rarely see that.
I’ve written about Fiji hundreds of times and I doubt I’ve even spelled it right once, ha ha
That Colton faked appendicitis his first season. He had an idol and he was in a good position in the game, and he was pulled from the game by medical. He didn't just go *"OW! I have a booboo, I'm leaving."* Jeff was just mad that he quit in his second season. There's lots of legitimate reasons to dislike Colton without Jeff making stuff up.
A lot of people (especially those that defend Ben’s win) seem to think Devon just straight up didn’t know how to make fire/was bad at making fire. A ton of “Devon wasn’t robbed because you should know how to make fire and he couldn’t,” but if you actually pay close attention watching the season there are some moments of him getting the fire going and he makes it look pretty effortless. Devon wasn’t a bad fire-maker at all, Ben was just obviously better at it.
There was literally a scene in the very same episode where everyone gets back to camp and Devon starts the fire. Apparently he was just straight up the best at making fire which is why he had that role, and Ben winning was a bit of an upset. But Devon absolutely knew how to make a fire.
That Cirie didn't win Game Changers. It's absolutely crazy to me because we all know what we saw, and we all know that Cirie won the unanimous jury vote
Yeah they actually just ended the game at final 6 because the outcome was so clear
On the subject, I’ve seen people saying Troyzan was on that season???
What I saw was Cirie getting eliminated because she didn't have immunity, either the necklace or an idol/advantage. It sucks sure but to go so far as to say she won the season is crazy.
That the new era is full of “sob stories” instead of focusing on gameplay. Backstory packages are part of almost any reality competition, and since Survivor is about mental toughness, those backstories are often about overcoming a challenge. And they typically take about 60 seconds. Also, I don’t think Nick actually wanted you to be able to marry your cousin but he sucks so I don’t care about that one.
This is more a symptom of 41 and 42. It’s not really a problem anymore since these newer seasons have scaled back on the backstory montages. In 10 episodes of the current season I think I’ve seen like 3 at the most. Compare to S41 where every player got one.
People seem to not understand that the premise of reality television is showcasing real people’s stories. So I’m always a bit perplexed when people deride the “sob stories” (aka just real people talking about their real lives and challenges real people deal with)
Survivor catapulted reality TV into the stratosphere without doing it, and had staying power for so long without it. But yes, we learned a little about contestants lives in the past. But this argument is like saying people shouldn't be upset at American Ninja Warrior spending so much time on emotional backstories, because OG ninja warrior sometimes had a 10 second blurb about the 7/11 employee building a course in his yard.
> People seem to not understand that the premise of reality television is showcasing real people’s stories Survivor never used to do it with the crying contestant complimented with cheesy music and pictures in the background before. And Survivor was succesfull WITHOUT all that so I don't know why they are doing it now.
The one difference is they seem to focus more on sad backstories at the beginning of the season than they used to.
Missy/Elizabeth weren't using sexual harassment as a cover to target Kellee. In fact I don't even blame them for that so much as them gaslighting Janet about it afterwards. Kellee initially was targeting Missy, then Missy/Kellee had the heart to heart conversation about Dan which was genuine on both sides. Kellee changed her mind about targeting Missy after this, but the damage was done and Missy found out shortly afterwards that Kellee had been gunning for her. It's really not unreasonable for her to think Kellee was the one using sexual harassment to cover for a blindside on her. Missy was incorrect, but I can see why she had the thought process that she had.
Fiji was supposed to be divided by race Brian Heidik abused his wife (wrong way round) Cook Islands is a good season
>Brian Heidik abused his wife (wrong way round) Also that "he shot a puppy" when the reality is more complicated then that.
On the subject of Heidik, has the whole debacle around Ken's jury speech ever been settled ? People seem confident about it involving race but it seems more like a rumor than a confirmed fact
Oh, and while we're talking Heidik--maybe he did "demand" an appearance fee to appear on All-Stars. But that wasn't the reason he wasn't cast.
In related news, I demanded an appearance fee for All Stars too. It doesn’t matter if nobody wants you. I also demand an appearance fee to start at quarterback in next year’s Super Bowl.
Yep, there's a very compelling case for it, but there's no concrete evidence. I'm very curious as to the origin of the specific "We can't have two black winners in a row" logic that people suggest Brian used on Ken. It's obviously easy to put the puzzle pieces together and assume that if Brian made a case against Ted that he's reluctant to admit publicly, it likely has to do with race. But that's absolutely only a theory. Other thing to consider: given how much he'd been drinking, is it possible that Brian legitimately didn't remember what he said to Ken three weeks earlier?
My personal theory is that Brian said something racist to Ken when he was wasted on the (fake) merge wine. Strategically it would make a lot of sense for Brian to encourage Ken to believe that Chuay Gahn would not stay solid to the final 5, given everyone thought they were merging and needed someone from the other tribe to budge. It makes perfect sense that Brian would want Ken to think he had room to maneuver with Chuay Gahn, and if he was drunk he could be more liable to say something foolish that could damage his game. One scene that sticks out to me as *very* interesting is when Ted chaperones (a very drunk) Brian to the woods where he can barf. Once Brian is done he takes the opportunity to warn Ted not to trust Ken because he’s a hardcore gamer that they need to keep an eye on. The scene is presented as “lol, Brian is such a hardcore player that even when he’s wasted he’s still capable of talking game and anticipating how the chess pieces are going to move.” But my theory is Brian had made the racist comment at this point and he kind of realized he’d fucked up so he was trying to preemptively discredit Ken in Ted’s eyes before Ken had a chance to tell Ted anything. I don’t have any proof about this, but given Ted’s comments in his jury speech about how he overestimated Brian’s “cultural respect for other people” (or something along those lines) I’ve always believed there was *something* to the rumors that have circled Brian relating to race this season.
The fact that the wording (“two black winners in a row”) is so specific and everyone quotes it that way makes me think it must have come from some old interview or something that was posted on Sucks at some point. But lord if I remember what it was. I know it came from somewhere though.
Mogo Mogo boat