Episode 27.10

As promised, here are challenges from Palau that I think would make a good Redemption Island duel. The information about the challenges comes from wikia. I have only included challenges that I think would work and ignored all others. I might do challenges from Borneo sometime, but that might be hard to list due to the reward challenge they didn't air in the second episode. Has footage of it been released? How could a reward challenge have such little affect on the rest of the game? Was there another season where it was edited out? Besides, I'd probably only list the first three challenges anyways, none of which would work well in the way it first appeared. I could mention them all after I watch the season. Was there even a dream team for the first season? I read that there wasn't one. It wasn't introduced until a challenge in the second season didn't work as planned. Does that mean that the rest of the second season had it or the third season started the dream team's tenure on the show? I don't know. I just know that Hunter from the fourth season joined the dream team which might mean we'll never see him play the show again. Why would they have a player back who knows a lot about how challenges work? Regardless of this, I will post information about Survivor: Palau challenges and which ones could reappear on Redemption Island.

Here are the challenges from Survivor: Palau that I think would work as Redemption Island duels. Keep in mind that a lot of them might need to be retooled first- Sea Salvage: contestants are brought out to sea and go underwater for a bottle to bring back to score a point. This might have to be a two way duel. Shooting Gallery: one player at a time uses a replica gun to shoot color coded tiles. There are eight for each tribe and (I'm fairly certain at least) that a point from another tribe on your target counts as a point to your tribe. This would probably only work as a two way duel and with better design so you don't knock yourself out of the game. Build It Up, Break it Down: the challenge varies by season but this time, it was one tribe building a barricade around a crate with a flag in it and the other tribe having to get it out after a certain amount of time had passed. This would have to be a two way duel. Sea Stars: this is a giant sliding puzzle out at sea that needs to be solved in order to win. Cool Hand Balut (more commonly called the gross food challenge or Survivor Smorgasbord, this time featuring only balut): The tribe members have to eat balut in order to win. The numbers of the food increases each round and a tie-breaker round features the fastest eater winning. They get a point for every one successfully eaten. This would probably also have to be a two way duel. Under Current (also known as Survivor Scramble): in this variation of the challenge, you see contestants swim to pontoons, get puzzle pieces, and swim back to the challenge board. After using the pieces to solve a puzzle, they must then solve a word search to identify letters used in more than one word to unscramble and put in a phrase to win immunity. The break separates the tribal challenges from the individual challenges.

Perch: contestants must stand on a perch over the water for a long amount of time and are tempted by items to step off of the perch. Take out the temptations or use a different season's version and use it as a reentry point where the winner gets back into the game. Survivor quiz: this recurring challenge is like Touchy Subjects, but isn't. Contestants are given a quiz over the place where they are filming this season. This might have to be a two way duel. Raft rally: Contestants must paddle a raft similar to what natives from Palau use to untie and color coded bag and bring it back to the dock. They must get five bags that have cities and distances from Palau and five major world cities. R.A.M.: contestants go through a course and have to memorize items on a grid. Each contestant has a different grid. Tower of Domination: in this challenge that is split into two parts, the first part has contestants go through a course while attached to a rope. They unhook themselves and wind up at the top of the tower use grappling hooks to get keys that unlock a flag that they must raise. In the second part of the challenge, they would take a zip-line like devise and retrieve a combination box containing a flag that would have to be raised in order to win. They could do the two parts separately as different duels. Bob-Bob buoy: This challenge had people simply standing on a buoy for as long as possible and the last person left would win the challenge. It was the longest challenge on record, so I'm not sure if they'd do it again, but if they did, it could be the other reentry point back into the game. If I can't choose this, then I don't know which challenge would work as the other reentry point, if I'm only choosing this one season's challenges to do the challenges in a Redemption Island season. I listed twelve challenges total and the other challenges done this season aren't included because I either didn't like them or they wouldn't otherwise work as a duel between two or more people.

Hopefully, I don't forget to post what all I promise to post and haven't posted yet. I'm sure that there are stuff that I might not remember to post and others that I'll do randomly in the hiatus between this season and season 28. Not much is known about the 28^th season for those that don't want to know about it. I remember a year ago when a promo aired looking for new contestants to apply for the show. Since all the new contestants from this season were recruited due to a loved one formerly playing the show, that probably means that if the commercial wasn't misleading people a year in advance, there are probably new players in the 28^th season. Is it all new players or a mixture of both? I will not research information because I don't want to be spoiled to anything. And the order that contestants just happen to be in this season lists many potential winners this season. So far, the current number of winners listed is six and they are Aras, Tina, Vytas, Caleb, Tyson and Gervase. Three of those people are on Redemption Island and cannot possibly all win. It would be interesting if the winner of this season ever gets voted out and sent to Redemption Island. We have the rest of the season to see if that will happen. I've heard the rumored winner, who is actually one of the six that I mentioned. But I'll try not to reveal anything early this season, even though I just said five people were rumored not to win this season. I just hope that I don't tell you who a runner-up is like I did with Dawn last season.

So, random things that I want to post would be the ten dumbest moves in Survivor history, the ten most shocking moments in Survivor history, the ten stupidest tribes in Survivor history, memorable Survivor rivalries, and various other things I'm sure I'll come up with at some point. I wish that I knew who to say Brad butted heads with this season, because I'm sure that he did that with someone (probably John). I had a Survivor dream relating to when Erik was voted out of Micronesia that largely focused on Natalie. I think the dream was one of those dreams where it more or less happened the exact way it happened in reality. I'm starting to think that I should just start a blog about my dreams, but I know that there are certain dreams that I wouldn't post online or tell anyone about. On second thought, even though most of my dreams can be shared with people, I wouldn't want to share them since I can turn them into TV show episodes and anyone could steal them online (even though google says that what's in my blogs is my property, it is hard to trust any online site with anything). For now, I will keep reporting on Survivor dreams randomly in this blog and other random things that are hopefully Survivor related. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Kasama comes back from tribal council. Katie talks about her mother getting voted out of the same. Ciera also talks about being the only loved one left in the game with her mother. I sense drama that isn't good for them, but is good for the viewers. Hopefully all is well by now. Meanwhile, I am getting annoyed by all the freaking Christmas commercials. If we need a plethora of those, it should be when it is actually December. We are at 331 and counting. Look at my TV blog for the total number sometime later.

In the next segment of the show, the Redemption Island duel happened. Who will lose between Aras, Vytas, and Tina? I'm hoping that Aras loses. The challenge is a maze that needs to be solved after getting puzzles solved with grappling hooks. Tina takes an early lead and Aras seems to be coming in second. The maze part seems very complicated and hard to do. Tina made a lot of progress and lost it closely. I don't like the challenge this much. Vytas won the duel. Tina is close to win and manages to do it. Aras will not win twice, but he is the first winner to be on the jury after he won since JT was voted out of Heroes versus Villains. But some winners were on the jury the first time they played, before they won. But I won't talk about John Cochran, Parvati, or Amber right now (I think those were the only three). Aras said a tearful goodbye and it marks the first time he was voted out. Vytas gives it to Katie and finally someone doesn't burn the idol clue. Too bad it has already been found.

In the next segment of the show, interesting things happen at camp while I'm too busy eating supper with my hands and can't do it. Tyson said, "I don't know why I'm wearing a shirt." That took a long time for that to happen. But I'm sure that many people were happy with that comment, even if they are straight men like me. That's his best quote this season since, "stupid will be stupid." Ciera and Laura are wondering if they can still play the game together or if they have to turn on each other. In a strange twist, Laura actually likes the fact that Ciera has turned into a great person and be told that without having to be a real blindside. So I'm not really sure what to make of this situation and it could be a lead-up to nowhere, as usual.

In the next segment of the show, Katie looks for an idol that isn't there and Tyson didn't even both making a fake hidden immunity idol. I miss fake hidden immunity idols. Whatever happened to them? Why did people stop making them? I miss them. Tyson continues to be full of himself and might not do well because of this. Then the immunity challenge happened. This appeared in previous seasons. I can't tell if it is more like the one that Dawn won in Caramoan or more like the one that Jane won in Nicaragua. Maybe it's a different version of both of them. I wonder if there will be any temptations of food or anything like that. Hayden is the first one out of the challenge. But you can't win HOH every week (they won't let you). Caleb also falls out of the challenge. There are no food choices. Gervase and Ciera fall out of the challenge and Katie follows soon after. Laura falls out leaving just Monica and Tyson left. Tyson falls out of the challenge and Monica wins. A lot of people don't like her this season so she could get voted out later. Monica decides to give her reward to everyone else except for her. Interesting move, but she's not the first contestant to do this. In fact, those who have never ended up winning (I think).

In the next segment of the show, a lot of drama happened again at camp and we don't even get to see the reward happen. I have finished supper, but only after tribal council started. Who will get voted out? Will it be Katie, Laura, or someone else entirely? Ciera doesn't like what Laura said based on her facial and otherwise nonverbal communication. This makes me think that Laura could still be the one voted out, although it could still be someone else entirely. Poor Laura if she has to return to Redemption Island. At least she made it longer than any other returnee from Redemption Island, and all this without winning the immunity necklace. This makes me glad that Laura has returned and hopefully we'll see her in a future season after this one. Nobody plays an idol because Tyson doesn't think that he's in danger, which he probably isn't. Will he ever be in danger? I don't know. Poor Laura gets voted out again and Katie lives to see another day. Will this come around and bit them in the ass or will Katie still be voted out in the future like Vytas was?

Next time on Survivor, Tyson could finally get voted out of the game (again) since his evil ways are catching up with him, even though the promo didn't make a lot of sense (they rarely do). So, once again, I'm not really sure what to expect for the next episode.

Confessional counts of players on Redemption Island: Aras- 15, Tina- 10, Vytas- 20. Confessional counts of players in the game: Hayden- 12, Gervase- 9, Tyson- 24, Caleb- 11, Laura- 12, Katie- 12, Monica- 15, Ciera- 16. New confessionals this episode: Katie- 4, Monica- 0, Ciera- 4, Hayden- 2, Gervase- 0, Tyson- 4, Caleb- 1, Laura- 3; Aras- 0, Tina- 0, Vytas- 0.

Not sure what to make of the confessionals this season. Some people (JML) are much better at seeing what happens than I am. But I am way behind on those podcasts and haven't had any time to catch up on them. Hopefully I will, but in my defense, I wanted to listen to a new one for a while before it was finally posted and I have yet to hear one that happened after Edna Ma was a guest. I will get caught up sometime, possibly only when the next season starts airing (probably sooner). So I don't know what else to report on, I just know that there's a bunch of random stuff that I need to talk about in this blog because I don't want to make promises and then not keep them. Oh, well. For now, this is Adam Decker signing off.