Survivor: Millennials versus Gen X Premiere

Well, here we are at another Survivor season. This time we are doing a battle of the generations. I’m surprised that I didn’t see this one coming. It’s the type of thing that seems like such an obvious twist that of course they would do it at some point. And yet, I never thought about it being done as a twist. I hope that I like the twist. Sometimes twists work and sometimes they don’t. I should do a whole analysis on twists of Survivor, but I doubt that I ever will. I should also try working this cast out as a returning player season. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out when some players from past seasons would work. I just have to figure out when the generations actually were. I’m surprised that I don’t already know this. Plus it is weird that this is technically another age battle. Nicaragua was officially young versus old and Panama was sort of like that for just the first episode or so.

Now I hope that I don’t sound dumb for wondering this, but what is a millennial? I have no idea what generation they are supposed to be. Were they born starting from 2000 onward? That can’t be right or they’d still be too young to compete in Survivor. (Well, they will be too young, but only for about two more years.) Are those born in the 90s millennials? I guess they would have to be by default. I’m just wondering why they are always being insulted and called lazy by other people. Sorry if I’m confused by this, but it seems that other people don’t seem to know what it is because they tend to think that different groups of people are millennials.

I guess that I’m wondering going into this which of the two tribes I’m supposed to root for. I think that I am a millennial since as of the summer, I am finally able to run for Congress. Of course, I’d probably never do that as I don’t want a job where so many people will hate me. I guess we’ll see as time goes by which of the tribes we are supposed to root for and which one the winner comes from. They don’t have as clear a winner’s edit as they used to.

Before my summer birthday happened, I had a dream that Danni from Guatemala had died. I didn’t realize that it was a dream at first, but did later into the dream. I also had a dream about there being some sort of special that had aired and they mentioned Danni in the dream. I was so thrown off by the special that apparently I had not been able to blog about it as I would have liked to. Dreams can be strange. In the meantime, I should probably figure out something else to ramble about. Before that, I might as well tell you about more dreams.

I had a dream that another Price is Right Survivor special aired and I wasn’t able to blog about it live so I hoped that I could watch it later online. I also had a dream where Jonathan Penner had died. The dream said that his was the second Survivor death of the year which implied that some other, unknown contestant had died before him that same year or that I had remembered the Danni death dream and thought that it was the first death of the year. I seem to have dreamt that a lot of the Survivor contestants have died. And yet, none of those dreams included B. B. Andersen or Caleb Bankston before their deaths. It would be weird though if any real life deaths happen after I dream about the same person dying. But I should move on to happier topics. Should I even mention these dreams?

Ever since San Juan del Sur has had two less contestants than it was supposed to, I have wondered if those two contestants would be playing Survivor in the future. One of them, So, ended up on the next season: Worlds Apart. I don’t know if this meant that she replaced someone else originally slated for that season or not. But her sister hasn’t been able to play again yet. Will we see her in the future? I don’t know the cast yet as of this paragraph’s writing. We could have seen her in Kaoh Rong potentially, but we never did. I don’t know if we’ll see her in this season or if we’ll have to wait for a future season. Sadly, we might never see her at all. I hope that we do see her, though

http://survivorshade.com/ Here’s a fun blog like website called Survivor Shade. They have a person and different Survivor contestants help recap each episode in a fun way. Right now, they have two regular contributors, one from gen x and the other is a millennial. In each episode this season, they will be having a guest gen x contestant and guest millennial contestant helping with the posts. I love this website, even if they are a bit unusual. Consider this an endorsement of Survivor Shade.

I started a new facebook group called Still a Rams Fan which is dedicated to those who still root for the Rams despite them leaving St. Louis. I thought that I would mention it here in this blog of mine. Also, I have another group called Firefly: Where are They Now? That group is basically keeping track of the nine cast members and creator of Firefly by mentioning what projects they are now doing.

Sometimes the anticipation of a season leads to a lot of wondering about what will happen. Sometimes Jeff Probst can accidently reveal spoilers about the season. Plus, tons of us want to know about season 34. SPOILER. Both tribes will go to tribal council before a potential swap. I really hope that they do a season soon without a swap. They are starting to overuse that twist. Season 34 is an all-star season, which seems soon to do that again. Apparently it will have two contestants from this season, but I won’t reveal who until the finale post of this season. Day 39 of season 34 was probably shortly before August 30^th of this year based on a post from one of the likely contestants. Also, the elements will affect the game like they never have before so it could lead to even more medical evacuations. END SPOILER. We’ll find out for sure what happens as the show airs.

One of Survivor’s best websites, Survivor Oz, is ending and we may lose access to all of it. I don’t know if I can somehow listen to any and every interview from it that I’d want to. Hopefully, I can find similar interviews on other podcasts (or somehow start my own podcast and interview people myself) or they can at least keep this up in some way. This will be a sad loss for the Survivor community.

Something to possibly note this season is the nicknames that people might have. I will find out as the show airs which of them I should change to their nicknames and which ones should remain their real names. It will probably relate to airtime which person for sure does or doesn’t have what nickname. I find nicknames to be confusing a lot, or at least a lot in Survivor: Fiji. And I haven’t even blogged about that season yet. It might be helpful if Jessica Figueroa goes by Figgy so I don’t have to keep her separate from Jessica Lewis. Keeping track of both first and last name can be a bit of a bother.

I have done almost no research into the cast this time around because I’m honestly not sure I want to know that much about them before the show starts airing. I might only be able to do cast previews or whatever I’ll call them before all-star seasons. With all new players, I’m just not sure that I’ll be able to come up with a good way of reviewing the cast ahead of time. Plus, I can probably have a more untainted version of the cast doing things this way. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Taylor, Mari, Zeke, some guy I missed, Sunday, and David are shown in the introduction. Does this mean that the others are out already? We’ll see. Jeff hands out the wrapped buffs with names to the contestants. Jeff mentions the years that each generation was born. Paul is the oldest in the game. CeCe doesn’t think that millennials work for anything. Adam (not me) defends stereotypes about his generation. Both tribes are given a chance to raid stuff in one of many unofficial opening challenges that the game starts with. Jessica (Lewis, I’m guessing), grabs an envelope, which is probably an idol clue. The younger tribe takes chickens and the older tribe takes fishing gear.

They seem to be on a small island. Jeff warns of potential hurricanes. Someone does bible translations which my mom (and me) were impressed by. Mari plays video games online so I’ll probably have to look up her videos on youtube. I like watching video games. I even got addicted to speedruns by accident. I was looking for a three day challenge of Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, but I looked up a speenrun of it by mistake as I thought that it would be the same thing. I was able to see a three day challenge (beating that game without using the song of time) later. Zeke doesn’t feel like he fits on his tribe. Jessica Lewis gets a new advantage: the legacy advantage. It only works on day 36 and she has to pass it on in some way if she is voted out (or presumably removed from the game in some other fashion). How would she do that? Will we find out?

In the second segment of the show, Figgy (Jessica Figueroa) is focused on in some way that I can’t really describe that well. Jay, Figgy, and Taylor seem to form a threesome. You can tell that they are definitely reinforcing stereotypes. Michelle is glad that what she’s doing is getting her trust on the tribe. People aren’t liking Rachel as much as she seems to be trying too hard. David doesn’t think that he can handle the environment, but he is only here for the game play. David thinks that someone has the idol and points this out to people. Chris thinks poorly of him because of this. Adam seems a bit rigid in a way. There seems to be a major storm brewing. When it is dark, the younger tribe does a quick job trying to figure out the shelter. They suffer due to their lack of shelter.

I will have new ways of recording shows this season with more options of what to do. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t suffer from other problems. While I’d love to record Law and Order: SUV tonight, that channel has pretty much almost never come in since around May. I don’t know how Blindspot or Grimm ended their seasons. I can just hope that NBC can start coming in later this season or I won’t be able to watch any of their shows. I was wanting to see if The Good Place was any good and I don’t want to resort to watching any show online except for Blindspot since they moved it to compete with this show. But if SUV isn’t coming in at eight, I guess that I’ll just have to record Modern Family instead. I’d miss it anyways if the other option was coming in.

In the third segment of the show, CeCe complains about the rain and the younger tribe was given a tarp. It is a temporary thing somehow. The older tribe gets one too. Jeff comes to the island and visits the orange (younger) tribe first. They are evacuating the island. I read that this had happened. I thought that it somehow happened before the season actually started, but it appears that it is part of the season in a way. This must be the unprecedented weather event. This might not have any effect on medical evacuations during the season as it seems that this might be the only event that happens.

In the fourth segment of the show, the tribes return the next day (at least in the edit, because I thought that filming was delayed for two weeks) and the older tribe learns that a tree fell on their shelter. David is worried about him staying in the game and goes off looking for the idol which alienates him from his tribe as he’s not helping them build shelter. The younger tribe also rebuilds and it seems like the players are not getting along according to the confessionals. This has yet to show up among camp life and seems to only be private right now. Could things fall apart for this tribe?

In the fifth segment of the show, we get to the day four immunity challenge. Is it just me or is this the latest they have ever done a first immunity challenge? This had to be due to the storm. This is when the tarps are returned. The challenge features potential shortcuts, but they get a bigger puzzle for each shortcut that they use. The younger tribe think that they should do the shortcut on the balance beam to avoid a potential failure ala Lopevi. The older tribe takes both shortcuts. The younger tribe does not take the first shortcut, but they do take the second one. It seems dumb as usual that only some people can do the puzzle at the end instead of the whole tribe. GET RID OF THIS STUPID RULE! The younger tribe wins the challenge after the older falters at the puzzle. Now how will there be enough material for the rest of the episode?

In the sixth segment of the show, the older tribe returns after their loss. Rachel seems to get the bulk of the blame for the loss. David tries to rectify the situation from earlier, but he might not be doing a good job with it. Do we really need a failure like this so soon? Honestly, I can’t tell right now if it is him or Rachel who will be the first boot. At tribal council, all of the tribe members talk about feeling in danger, although some feel more in danger than others. The votes seem a bit scattered in a way. Would CeCe really be in danger? No, she is not. Rachel is voted out. But how will CeCe feel now?

On the next Survivor, it appears that a showmance is brewing and a medical evacuation is going to happen more than likely. This means that I’ll have to update my groups of that again. Could someone have really had a heart attack in the game? I guess we’ll have to see for sure.

Total confessional count: Rachel- 2, Michaela- 3, Sunday- 1, Jessica “Figgy” Figueroa- 1, Chris- 2, Lucy- 0, Adam- 3, Bret- 2, Jessica Lewis- 3, Ken- 1, Michelle- 1, Hannah- 3, Zeke- 4, Justin “Jay”- 1, Taylor- 2, Mari- 4, Ciandre “CeCe”- 2, Paul- 1, Will- 2, David- 4.

Rachel had two confessionals from my count, but what do I know? I always miss some. She had the same number as CeCe, Bret, Will, Chris, and Taylor. She had more than Paul, Ken, Michelle, Sunday, Figgy, Jay, and Lucy. Lucy is the lowest in terms of confessionals as she is the only one with none in this episode. There are three tied for the highest confessional with four a piece: Mari, Zeke, and David. We’ll see, probably sooner rather than later, if any of these are red herrings for early outs or are good signs for their future in the game. I know that it goes both ways right now.

Boy, it feels good to be back blogging about Survivor episodes again. It feels good since it has been so long since there have been new episodes. I do wonder if three seasons would be a good idea or not (by adding a regular summer season), but I think that just having it in the main TV season is what works. We’ll see what this season is like in the future. For now, this is  Adam Decker, signing off.