Episode 25.12

So there will be a loved ones challenge in this episode. It might change the game. And the poor jury will not experience the loved ones challenge. That must be the part of the game with the most potential spoilers in it. All of the loved ones has to sign confidentiality statements and will know potentially more than the average viewer. They will especially know more than the other loved ones of this contestant who weren't chosen for this challenge. There could potentially be problems with the challenge as the player may want a different person. Or they may want their best friend so they can have a lie already rehearsed about their grandmother dying while they were away. And the contestant can play a trick on their loved one. In Survivor: Vanuatu, Chris thought that he would lose the game if he lost the immunity challenge. He did lose the challenge, but he was not voted out. He went on to win the game. And he told his wife that he was voted out that episode. And she believed him. Until the episode aired, of course. I know about this because Jeff talked about it in the reunion show. I don't know if I'd want to be the loved one of a contestant on the show or not. I mean, I probably wouldn't be able to compete on the show. And if I was a former contestant, I probably wouldn't be allowed to be a loved one anyways. Normally, the loved ones either help with the challenges or do the challenges for the real players. It is normally the most sentimental part of any season. Does anyone know how they do the challenges? I must imagine that it would be very complicated. Like I heard in the first season, they had a challenge which involved potential loved ones. The person who won the challenge got the loved one. So all of the others were waiting at an airport waiting until the challenge was completed. The moment it was, the loved one of the winner of the challenge got to board a special plane. The others got a special consolation prize. I don't know if the show is still like that. It might be sort of complicated still, but I don't know if it is. All I know is that there is a horribly long flight to and from whatever location they are filming at. There's not always a loved ones challenge. Sometimes it is merely a reward for whatever someone might have won and not everyone gets it. Sometimes they can't do one for whatever reason. Due to political unrest in Fiji, they couldn't do a loved ones challenge that season. In fact, that horrible season might have been ruined further if they had to cancel everything when the game was already in progress with so much done and so much left undone. Although, we really wouldn't have lost anything if that season had never aired. I'm glad that it wasn't cancelled in the end. I really don't think that any potential Survivor season should be unaired or unmade. Besides, there's always a market for selling seasons and the fans are probably that crazy. I mean, aren't most fans of Survivor lifelong fans?

You know, if you ever have free time, you can go to www.wikia.org and learn a lot of information about Survivor contestants. I've also learned more about the game itself. Did you know that Russell Hantz originally wanted to be on the second season of Pirate Master? (For those of you who aren't familiar with that show, it's basically just Survivor on a ship. It's hard to call it an original show and it wouldn't have been made were in not for the Disney pirate movies.) Well, because that show was cancelled, they suggested that he do Survivor instead. He wasn't as familiar with the game and was told to start watching the sixteenth season to prepare to be on the show. I also learned that the hidden immunity idol cannot be stolen by another player since that is against the rules in the Survivor handbook. Those are considered personal items and you're not allowed to steal personal items. You can still look through their belongings to see if they had it, but you couldn't take it if you did find it and see that they did, in fact, have it. And if you are interested in possible Survivor spoilers, you can join the facebook group Survivor Whispers which is run by an infamous person who will probably never be able to play the game. I don't know why I joined the group, but I figure that it's worth something. I hope that this doesn't lower my chances of being a contestant, although I wouldn't post spoilers about the season if I did. Not unless I had five million dollars that they would charge me for talking about these spoilers. Besides, I'd have to get far in order to know anything about it anyways. Otherwise, the only spoiler I would know is Adam Decker was the first person voted out and these were the other contestants. And something that I wonder about is if young people watch Survivor. I started when I was ten and didn't even realize that it is more for adults than kids. But, normally the shows are PG and not TV-14. So normally there wouldn't be a problem. Rob and Amber's kids might watch the show while waiting to be contestants when they are old enough. Although the show would be on its 36^th season before they even have the possibility of having a contestant who is younger than the show. And does anyone wonder why non Americans play the American Survivor? I'm glad that they do, but they are normally strange contestants. I forget how many of them there have been. In fact, there might have only been two.

Something else I wonder is how a location for Survivor is chosen. They originally wanted to do seasons 23 and 24 in Tonga instead of Samoa. Apparently, economic problems in Tonga forced them to return to Samoa a third and fourth time. Although I don't know how that type of problem would prevent a season there as you think that a season in your country would help the economy. After the tenth season of Survivor, tourism in Palau increased. I wonder if the place applies to be on Survivor, Survivor decides to go to the place, or a combination of both. The fourth season was the first to use a back-up location, or at least the first one that we know about. So I hope that they get their location so that they don't have to reuse a location. Although there aren't always problems if they do. Sometimes they want to reuse location. I even want them to. I suggest it whenever I can. Although unsolicited ideas cannot be accepted by them due to legal reasons, I'm pretty sure. I wonder how my idea could be an official idea. How can an idea become solicited? I don't even know what that means. The policies are probably, if we send them the idea, it becomes their property is no longer ours. That must work with the so called CYA system that I've heard about. (If you don't know what that stands for, I'm not going to tell you). I just wish that I knew how to send them my ideas. I would send an official email to someone if I knew that they would accept it. And for those who follow me on twitter, I was the one who tweeted that there should be a reward challenge hashtag before the official one was created. There is at least one location that the producers have said that they will never reuse as it was that bad. Something else I wonder is how much of the sets, camps, and whatever remains a part of the location they use. I mean, the tribal council could be there for a long time, although it is probably taken down. So going back to an old location might mean that some of their old sets are still there. Of course, they will be using the same sets and whatever in the next season that they used in this one. That is mostly due to budget cuts and presumably, a gradual loss of viewership. Although if CBS ever cancelled Survivor, I imagine that the CW or someplace would then pick it up.

You know, I'm glad that Survivor hasn't been causing any controversies lately. In fact, that last controversy didn't have anything to do with something inside the game. For those of you familiar with the Jim Early spoilers of seasons 19 and 20, then you know what I'm talking about. He basically got an informant who may or may not have been Russell Hantz who told him everything about those two seasons. There hasn't been a controversy since. Anything could happen. In the fourth season of the Philippine Survivor, for instance, there was a tribal council where it is believed that every jury member pointed to a contestant in the game and mouthed the words to vote him out. That person was blindsided that very night. Unsure of what to do, the producers decided to keep the game going as regularly planned. There was, of course, a big problem when it aired among the fans of the show. I'm not sure what controversy could happen on Survivor that hasn't happened already. Of course, they've already had a player think that producers told them to vote her out. She sued them and was countersued and the whole issue was settled outside of court. We have no idea who won the lawsuit because of that ending. We all know that she will never be able to play the game again (although we have no idea what crazy things could happen). And, of course, if a player gets ejected from the game in a season, that would be controversial. I hope that it never happens. Depending on the reason for the ejection, they might have deserved it.

You know something happened before I posted this. I was banned from the facebook group that I just mentioned. Or, I'm not sure if I'm banned per say, but apparently I was asking too many questions. I'm not exactly sure what I did wrong, but I have found out some potential spoilers for this episode as well one contestant who might not win this season. At least I found out that Survivor 26 will have John from South Pacific. And that's enough knowledge that I shouldn't have known that can cause problems, even on a group about spoilers. I'm surprised he's even returning. He doesn't seem like the type of person who would make it that far. He's sort of like Ian from Big Brother in terms of appearance and being a superfan of the show he's playing in. And Jim Early's informant in the game is probably not Hantz, given what he was willing to talk about in the group. So Mark Burnett, if you're reading this, you should be concerned about who you let work for Survivor. If Jim Early knew every winner since Pearl Islands, it has to be someone that's more into the group that films/produces/other contestants/someone the host is friends with/otherwise helps with the show and is talking with this person. Or he's full of crap. If he's really into all these spoilers all the time like he says he is, than someone should really be concerned. But I'm not into spoilers anyways and would rather not know anything about a season that hasn't even aired. I guess that I just wanted to see what all was real. I should have known better. Besides, if asking who just one contestant is can get you into trouble on a spoiler board for Survivor, then it doesn't seem like a good idea to be a part of it. Or, maybe it was the comment I had after it that caused problems. Who wants to be part of a spoiler board anyways? They gave some for this episode, so I guess I'll wait to see if they are true or not. But enough of my ramblings.

Due to the episode being recorded earlier, this will not be the typical blog post. In fact, I'll never be able to do one again until the season finale. Advent has started and I have to record the episode while I'm at church. So I have to watch it later instead of live, when it normally is best to write this post. This will be a delayed post compared to when it is normally written. Although it doesn't matter to you, the reader, so I'm not sure why I'm telling you this anyways. I'll be sure to update this as soon as possible.

So, now that I've seen the episode, I will now write this blog. Survivor Whispers was right regarding what happened this episode. The loved ones challenge was interesting, emotional, and heartfelt, like it normally is. I wonder how they explained to Abby's mother about the rules of the challenge since she doesn't speak English. Malcolm won the challenge and gave Michael and Lisa the share of the reward. They concocted a plan to try to blindside Malcolm. Only Malcolm would win immunity. So they decided between Abby and Carter who they wanted to get rid of. They decided to get rid of the poor contestant Carter, who never got much airtime and wasn't really as memorable. I forgot if he was originally on Kalabow or not, but I know that the red tribe has no remaining players in the game. There are still three Tandang and two Matsing members. I honestly wouldn't have expected the tribe that never won a challenge to make it this far in the game. I'd still want one of them to win. Abby's fake idol didn't really help her much and now everyone probably knows for sure, if they didn't before, that the idol isn't real. Malcolm will probably play his idol at the next tribal council, just to be safe. In Survivor: Nicaragua, the two people with idols both played them when they were last valid. They weren't interested in souvenirs, they wanted to win. I'll never understand those who don't play their idols and want to keep them after the game is over. Except for Colton, if you don't play the idol, you are dumb. Just ask James. Or Ozzy. Or the scores of other people who were dumb about it. The promo didn't help reveal much about the next episode, which is what they want to do, of course. Not really sure what else I want to say. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.