Survivor Blood versus Water Premiere

Okay, this will be a crazy season probably. For the 27^th time in a row, Jeff Probst promises that this will be good season. There are a lot of twists this season. Redemption Island is back. You can replace your loved one on Redemption Island. I wonder if this will actually be a real island for a change. I also wonder if someone replaces their loved one on Redemption Island and then loses the duel, what they are said to be. They were never voted out. They were still eliminated, but they weren't voted out of the game. They didn't quit either. I guess I'll have to look at the terminology if somebody does that. I have heard some spoilers for this season and I might talk about them here, but only if they actually happen or they are proven to be false. I'm also considering doing a confessional count of every contestant this season. The more confessionals could be what the winners get. I'm fairly certain that an episode one confessional is always given by the first boot of the season. But we don't know if Redemption Island would mess that up. In the first two seasons with Redemption Island, nobody was permanently eliminated until the third episode of the season. That could be why they brought back the first impressions twist. I gave that twist the rating seventh worst in Survivor history. For numbers 1-6, look back at my old blog posts and you'll see what I thought bad twists were (and what some weren't). I've already posted what I thought of the returning players and even the new players as well. Day zero seems like an interesting twist.

I do think it is interesting that if a player replaces their loved one on Redemption Island, their loved one joins their old tribe keeping the number of both tribes the same but possibly alienating the new tribe that they are now a part of. This could make tribes hard to keep track of since this twist could make there be more incarnations of different tribes than any season before. I think that the record is four. I'll tell you how. All-Stars had the three tribes, the two tribes, the other two tribes, and the one tribe. Cook Islands had the four tribes, the two tribes, the other two tribes, and the one tribe. Gabon had the first two tribes, the second two tribes, the third two tribes, and the one tribe. I will keep track of the players and their previous seasons. There is one player from Borneo. There is one player from Australia. There is one player from Pearl Islands. There are two players from All-Stars. There is one player from Panama. There is one player from Cook Islands. There is one player from Tocantins. There is one player from Samoa. There are three players from Heroes Versus Villains. There are three players from One World. There are ten new players this season. I will tell you when a season gets eliminated which one will eventually. I will also keep track of the confessional counts of the players for this season throughout the entire game. Elimination results in no more confessional count in this blog. I will post my favorite player in the game and my favorite player on Redemption Island. Hopefully, you will like this format for my future blogs. To me, no confessionals for a contestant mean that you aren't eliminated yet. But if you do get a confessional in the first episode, then you could be the next boot. See if my jokes about a winner turn out to be true.

I haven't told you about my Survivor dreams in quite a long time. I had one where I was playing on a tribe with Sandra (Pearl Islands), Russell Hantz (Samoa), and Amanda (China). It was relatively early in the game. I made Russell a fake hidden immunity idol to deter him from looking for the real one. He might have been the first one voted out. I figured that Russell would deserve something cruel like a fake idol so that's why I gave it to him in the dream. I do wonder why fake hidden immunity idols haven't appeared since Tocantins. I miss them. Another Survivor dream I had involved a battle of the sexes season. The reward of a challenge was considered so great that both tribes got to go on it regardless of who won. But the losing tribe had to go naked. The women lost the challenge and got to be naked in a public city. I'm not certain if that's allowed in most places, but apparently it was in this city they went to. Another dream I just had last night confused Big Brother and Survivor. Apparently Kat was the saboteur in the game (a twist used when Hayden played) and she got voted out just like Annie did. Apparently, there are interesting potential spoilers about her this season, but I don't know what they are. Is she the first one out? Does she win? Is she the runner-up? Is she first out after the merge? Does she win Redemption Island? Is she the last person voted out? Does she get medically evacuated? I heard a rumor that there aren't any medical evacuations this season. But I heard that from a spoiler source who isn't really that straightforward with his spoilers. I also had another Survivor dream where Francesca from Redemption Island and Caramoan died and the editors at wikipedia wondered if she really needed a page just for dying. They thought the same thing about Jennifer Lyon. Francesca used to have a wikipedia page, but they deleted it. No offense to her, but I don't think that she really needs one. I also had a dream where James, originally from China, died and they aired a special based on his time from Survivor. Also, what would be an interesting twist for this season that really would have tested everything is if there were ten tribes of two. But I don't see that happening in any season. It would be interesting, though, to see more fire making tie-breakers. If there is only one member on a tribe, they chose which tribe to join. But that already sounds like a horrible twist they should never do. If a contestant replaces their loved one on Redemption Island, that isn't getting voted out. That's simply replacing who got voted out. How would they classify that anyways? How would Redemption Island work after the merge? Would it even be present after the merge? Will it work better this season? I hope that it does because there are more returning players to keep it interesting. I find it a great and underrated twist.

Oh, by the way, some people who regularly read this blog might remember me saying that Survivor 27 and 28 might be filmed in the Solomon Islands. But I couldn't find the source that was obviously wrong. Well, I finally figured out that I was looking at links to Survivor role playing sites and they were never really a legitimate location for Survivor. Who knows if they'll ever go to that location officially. I don't know if they will or not. Why are they going to the same locations over and over again? This is the third season in a row filmed in the same location. And the 28^th season, which is rumored to have all new players, is filmed in this exact same place and will probably be named after the place it was filmed at. Maybe it could have RC's father in it. RC and her father were supposed to be on this season instead of Candice and her husband. But I have the feeling that she could return, even if her father doesn't. I hope the overuse of locations isn't bad. They seem to return to a location after it was hit by some sort of disaster. This makes me wonder how long I'd have to wait for them to return to Palau. I'd love to play a season in Palau, but it could also be a good place to go on a honeymoon or extravagant vacation.

Maybe during this blog, I should talk about how the first impressions twist has changed this season since it was first used in Tocantins. Sandy and Sierra got off to a bad start by not making a journey. They got a helicopter ride to camp, but they both didn't do as well in the game because of that dumb twist. I always wonder if it was supposed to be an even worst twist, but it was changed when they had less contestants than they should have. I'm probably the only person who thinks that Tocantins was supposed to have more than 16 contestants, but it could be true. Mike from Samoa couldn't do Tocantins because of high blood pressure (similar to how RC's dad couldn't play this season) and was put on Samoa instead. What's ironic is he left the game of Samoa due to low blood pressure and had what might have been the shortest recovery time of any player to be medically evacuated. Abby from the twenty-fifth season was originally recruited for Tocantins, but they didn't want a Brazilian woman to be playing Survivor in Brazil. I wonder if most of the villains from Survivor are recruits instead of applicants. Those are just two players who could have been on Tocantins, but weren't. In this season, you really do get voted out during the first impressions twist (unless your loved one replaces you on Redemption Island). At least you can fight to get back in the game, but I still don't like first impressions. Oddly enough, I love Redemption Island who many say is the worst twist ever. (I, for one, hardly believe that people getting a second chance at the game can be a bad twist, but that's just my opinion. Maybe people will stop hating on the outcasts sometime as well.) Meanwhile, everyone seems to forget that the worst twist happened in the fourteenth season and lead to one tribe dominating premerge. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first scene, Day zero happens very quickly and there's a recap of the returning players first time playing. Survivor starts. They are separated into two different tribes and the first impressions twist returns. A bunch of confessionals all happen at once. Laura Boneham is voted out of the new tribe, true to the spoilers I heard. Candice is voted out of the returning player tribe, true to other spoilers I might have heard and TV guide themselves aired. That seems appropriate since she wasn't supposed to be on this season. John talked it over with his wife and he decides not to switch places with her. Candice and Rupert are now on Redemption Island. My favorite to win is Laura Boneham (possibly both Lauras) and Rupert is my favorite to win Redemption Island. The first act confirms the spoilers I've heard thus far.

In the next segment of the show, Laura Boneham might be on the wrong tribe and Rupert's decision might not work out that well. Would he have done it if it kept the numbers from his old tribe? I would have preferred that to happen instead, but that's just my opinion I've already told you that. I've already missed a new guy's confessional count. Also Brad is bad at math.

In the next segment of the show, people on the new tribe told people secrets, or at least Ciera and Vytas did about teen pregnancy and Vytas did. Colton also continued to back pedal from his first season. He gets emotional. But we all know that reality TV hires gay people because they make great characters. Monica doesn't think she's changed and I don't think I have the right confessional count. But I have different rules than other people might have. We then get to see more of Rupert and Candice on Redemption Island. Candice is annoyed that she got voted out. Hopefully, the votes are made official. I'm still annoyed that I have no idea who on Koror gave Ibrehem on Ulong immunity. Candice thinks that Rupert is being lazy, but Rupert has a plan for it to not wear himself out so he can win the duels. He also points out that he's never won an individual immunity challenge and he thinks that he can win Redemption Island. Good luck with that.

In the next challenge, both players got ready for their immunity challenge. I messed up the confessional count again. Both tribes either have fire or one or both of them are lying about it. The new players are doing better in the first challenge, which typically always happens. I hope that Laura Boneham doesn't get voted out (again). Rupert wasn't even voted out. The official term, according to Survivor wiki, is switched with loved one. The new players have to go to the first tribal council, which has actually never happened before on a new tribe versus returning players tribe season. Ciera was right about her mother kicking butt at the challenge. Unless Katie got a confessional I didn't notice, she isn't getting voted out tonight. Would the voted out person get a lot of confessionals like Brad or have they not gotten a lot? I think I know who might be voted out, but that's only if spoilers are true and there's always a possibility that it isn't. Once again, I have lost track of the confessional count. Every new player has one by now, I think. The twist of the season could be interesting since loved ones could be targeted just because their loved one did something that didn't like.

So the tribal council of the red tribe started. Galang is the yellow tribe that won immunity and has returning players and Laura Boneham. Tadhana is the red tribe full of new players that have a male versus female thing going already. It looks like Marissa is getting voted out thanks to what her uncle did. Next time: Colton is back to his old self. No surprise there. Hopefully the problems I had with a (sorta) new VCR doesn't affect the people who want to watch it who aren't me. And hopefully nobody on the west coast is reading this blog that I'm going to post soon after the episode is done airing on the east coast reads this blog of mine. Marissa is voted out, but nobody is gone from the game just yet due to Redemption Island.

Confessional Count of players: Laura Morett- 2, Hayden- 1, Gervase- 1, Marissa- 3, Tina- 1, Tyson- 0, Caleb- 3, Aras- 1, Vytas- 3, Laura Boneham- 1, Rupert- 5, Candice- 1, John- 2, Katie- 1, Brad- 7, Monica- 2, Colton- 2, Ciera- 2, Kat- 0, Rachel- 1.

Not sure what else to say yet. Brad is the most focused upon new contestant and both Kat and Tyson have yet to be focused on that much. For now, this is Adam Decker signing off.