What Three Medically Evacuated Players Should Return?

For those of you that read my blog during the summer, you may notice that I always tend to keep doing a post about trying to get medically evacuated players to return again like they did in Philippines. I don’t know if they will ever do this twist again and I’m not sure if they should considering how redoing a twist doesn’t seem to work out as well sometimes (in terms of major starting twists, that is). But I still thought that I’d make my case as to why a certain group of three should be the next players to return in a twist like what started Philippines.

Since I am choosing a certain group of three, you might wonder who out of all that I could choose would be good picks. I honestly might do this post again in the future with a completely different cast later. But I will go with my picks for a good group of three for this time and make a case for another group of three next time. Clearly, they can go with whoever they want or whatever ends up happening. So I will make this group a and next summer’s post can be group b. And once I am out of groups, then I’ll just have to come up with another random post. Anyways, here are my three.

Bruce from Panama is my first choice as he is the person who was medically evacuated longest ago who hasn’t returned to play another season yet. I think that he would be good as he is a nice player and he sort of just left without a clear resolution to his story.

Erik from Micronesia and Caramoan is someone who has told two incomplete stories so far and still needs a clear resolution to his story. Plus, it kind of sucks that he recovered so quickly after being pulled and couldn’t reenter the game even though next to nothing had happened since he left.

Joseph Del Campo from Kaoh Rong may be out of the oldest people to have played the game, but he can still get things done. It really sucks that he won a reward after the dumb rules of the challenge pretty much forced everyone else to do nothing until he did win only for the reward he won to effectively poison him and pull him from the game from the result. It seems almost as if they owe him as a result another chance at the game because of this.

Well, those are my three for this group of players. I feel that it would be best for them if they were all pulled around the same part of the game so that would be fairer to each other if not the new players that they would be playing with. I know age could be a factor instead, but I'd rather go with when they were pulled from the game. I do think that they should do this twist again, if only to separate it from the scandals of Michael Skupin. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten Power Shifts

When the game suddenly changes with the power going from one side to another side, that is a power shift. Do they happen a lot in Survivor? Maybe, if not as much as one would like. But there were plenty good ones that happened on the show and this is me mentioning the ten best ones.

#10 Sook Jai affected by fake merge- In Thailand, things would have probably been doomed for the Sook Jai tribe regardless of what happened next. But the fake merge is what made the tribe fail when it might have otherwise lasted.

#9 Mike surviving- In Worlds Apart, Mike wound up at the bottom of the merged tribe while the axis of evil tried to take control of the game. Only he ended up outlasting them all and winning the game. It was a power shift that he had to pull off by himself.

#8 Kass flipping- In Cagayan, the game was going to be set in stone for whoever wound up on top at the first tribal council of the merge. Kass was the reason that the power shift happened even as people thought that someone else would be in control of the game.

#7 Timbira losing the majority- In Tocantins, everything was going for this tribe until it imploded on itself as it spiraled out of control. The other tribe didn’t even have to do anything and it came out on top in a string of bad choices that caused practically every member of Timbira to turn on itself.

#6 Chris the underdog- In Vanuatu, poor Chris felt certain that he would be voted out of the game since the women had all the control and he didn’t have immunity. But he was able to start working with the women and he outlasted the other players by winning.

#5 The Aitutaki Four- In Cook Islands, things looked really bad for this tribe after a surprise mutiny left the over tribe with twice as many members as this tribe. But this tribe ended up going on a winning streak. They could have lost at the merge and they still had a minority against the other tribe, but a member flipped back to this tribe and they ultimately came out on top.

#4 The Outsiders- In Marquesas, what some call the first true power shift happened, although I’m not too sure that it was the first. There was one alliance in the game, but they made the fatal flaw of letting the others know that they thought they were in charge during a fateful challenge. Thus, the outsiders were formed and the other alliance fell to this one.

#3 Russell’s side winning- In Heroes versus Villains, the villains tribe suffered an internal fracture early into the game with Rob having his alliance and Russell having his. People who didn’t know spoilers might not know what was going to happen next. But Russell convinced Tyson to flip his vote and he did well the next time and got out Rob. It was a huge power shift.

#2 A fateful tie- In Australia, the Kucha tribe could have won if they hadn’t lost a member to fire. But they still might have done more in the game were it not for the tie breaker rules that existed at the time. A strategic vote by the other tribe had them get out the only known member of Kucha with votes against them and their fate as outcasts were sealed.

#1 Foa Foa soaring- In Samoa, it took a crazy vote at the merge to start the dominoes falling until Galu was gone from the game. Natalie helped organize the blindside of Erik and then things started getting more and more sour for Galu until they were all gone from the game.

Well, that’s all that I can think of for this blog post. I hope that I didn’t miss any good ones or mention any ones that weren’t good. But we all have different opinions and I hate just how much some people are convinced that a person is wrong whenever they disagree. That is my opinion on the matter as least. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Notable Confusing Survivor Events

There are plenty of confusing things that happen on Survivor many times. Some make little sense. There are a lot of things that are just plan confusing. What are all of them? Well, I might as well do a list of the various confusing events that have happened in Survivor history.

The first merge tribal council had the most confusing vote in the history of Survivor. There were six contestants who each got a vote. I have seen that episode at least twice. I’ll probably watch it again and again over time. And yet I’ll probably never understand the vote. The members of Pagong had even said that they would target the members of Tagi and eliminate them one by one. What went wrong? I don’t understand to this day why the vote was so confusing and doubt that I ever will.

The purple rock’s first appearance was the ultimate act of confusion that we might ever see on this show. The contestants are tied. They probably think that they will go to the previous votes against them method to resolving the tie. (They don’t know that the method wouldn’t work since they have the same number of previous votes against them.) What people don’t realize is that the method of resolving ties has been changed and they are suddenly thrust into having to draw for rocks which will eliminate them. This becomes the most confusing thing to happen in terms of ties.

Jerri getting booed at the All-Stars reunion show was a pretty weird thing that I don’t understand. Maybe I’d have to rewatch it to know for sure why this went on. Maybe people just took their hatred of her too far. Maybe I missed what might have happened that lead to this. But I just know that I’m still confused by this now and I don't know why the audience was so mean.

Palau’s beginning was one of the weirdest ways of starting a season. The contestants learn that there is an immunity necklace for the first man and first woman who make it to shore. Then, after the weird challenge, everyone is living together without any tribes being formed. Such a weird thing had never happened before in the show’s history.

In Cook Islands, I think that we were all confused by the moment that Billy fell in love with Candice. Maybe he just misheard her or somehow thought for a while that she had fallen in love with him. I think that he takes it in stride now and understands the weirdness of the moment. But we didn’t really know for sure what had happened until Candice confirmed that she did not fall in love with him.

In China, I know that I was confused by Jamie and her confusion over the hidden immunity idol. The particular thing that I found strange was when she looked through a bag that had James’s real idol in it. Now what we don’t quite get is that a hidden immunity idol is a personal item and cannot be stolen from another player. I wondered why she couldn’t just take his idol as a result, but that isn’t allowed. I guess that I just found it unusual, even though most people might not care or notice.

Bill’s elimination in One World seemed pretty strange given the unprecedented way it occurred. His tribe gave up immunity and I’m shocked that it was allowed to happen at all. Why would the tribe be allowed to give up immunity? Why doesn’t Jeff put a stop to this nonsense and tell them to go back and tell the other tribe to attend tribal council like they rightfully should be doing? It was confusing to me and probably to everyone else who watched.

Those are all the events that I felt were worth posting in this blog. I doubt that I covered all of them. But I hope that you liked this blog post even if it was a bit random. That’s what I do when Survivor is on hiatus. I do random posts for this blog instead. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

The Ten Dumbest Players

You probably think that I might be too harsh on some people for the decisions that they made during the game. Indeed, my end of the seasons awards always mention not just the dumbest move of the season but the second and third dumbest as well. I could probably mention a lot of people here, but I’m only going to go with ten of them. I’ll try to avoid most of those who just made one dumb move and stick to just the overall dumb players. Who were the ten dumbest players? Well, let’s get to them.

#10 Travis (Vanuatu)- Maybe some of these will be a random person to some people. I’m not sure if he was that dumb altogether, but he certainly had a major dumb move against him when he openly tried telling his old tribe to think about the merge. His current tribe voted him out later that day. That was pretty dumb, wasn’t it? He thought too far ahead that he messed up on the present.

#9 Shii Ann (Thailand)- It isn’t entirely her fault that some people on her tribe didn’t like her. But if you want to flip on them, you better make sure that they can be flipped on. She didn’t do that and was voted out since they all knew she was going to turn on them. She did get to play a second time and I can’t think of any really dumb things she did then.

#8 Rafe (Guatemala)- When you have everything going for you, you shouldn’t give it all up just because someone is upset about losing the final immunity challenge. He didn’t win either and his great game play turned into just one horrible mistake. Why release someone from a deal that will get you voted out instead? It doesn’t make any sense.

#7 Denise (China)- Even without the reunion show controversy where she unintentionally mislead people into getting money she didn’t deserve, she would still be dumb for how she was constantly mistreating another player in the game and expecting nothing bad to happen. I still don’t know why people thought that they should vote her out instead of keeping her around to beat in the jury. But I can’t think of anything smart that she did when she played.

#6 Matt (Redemption Island)- I want to like this guy despite his dumb way of playing the game, but he really is an example of nice guys finish last. He was voted out of the game and got a rare chance at playing it again by winning everything challenge. He then blabbed about a plan to blindside someone to that someone even though he insisted that he wasn’t going to do it anymore. That got him voted out and he ultimately was on the jury by making a huge dumb choice.

#5 Ken (Gabon)- What he tried to do was so dumb that it can be hard to believe that someone almost fell for it. He wanted someone to give him his immunity necklace in order to vote that person out. He practically said it himself. Who can be that dumb?

#4 Erik (Micronesia)- Okay, maybe he wasn’t bad the second time around, although we’ll never know for sure since he had such an abrupt end to the game. The first time he played wasn’t that bad until he seriously messed up. He gave away immunity and was voted out as a result. People couldn’t believe that he would do something so dumb, but he did. And he will forever go down in infamy.

#3 JT (Heroes versus Villains)- I’m not even going to mention his first or third season in this post because it seems that they are completely irrelevant to the dumb move that he did by giving his idol to the other tribe. This caused him to get voted out. I don’t know why or how people defend that move. If it were a good move, it would have worked, plain and simple. I don’t know if I should be putting a winner on this list as he played a great game the first time around. But I still feel that he is worth his place on this dumb players list for no other reason than giving Russell his idol.

#2 Abi-Maria (Philippines and Cambodia)- Abi and the last person don’t have any single move that puts them on this list, but they do have tons of overall dumb game play that they used throughout the game to the mocking of various fans. Let’s just look at all the dumb things she did the first time she played: she openly insulted other contestants, openly feuded with a contestant in front of the whole tribe for little to no reason, and didn’t know that people hated her. The second time she played, she was just as bad as the first time making me wonder why on earth fans would cast her over great players like Teresa or Carolyn. She did more dumb things such as openly mocking the jury member who was just voted out, got upset over a trinket, and was rejected by being a goat people could beat for a second time just because people would have hated the fact that she would even get that chance. Yet she’s not nearly anywhere as bad as

#1 Brandon (South Pacific and Caramoan)- So many people give Cochran grief for flipping even though he couldn’t win the first time around. But this guy is the dumbest ever contestant and worst one too. I don’t know why people think that he could have won the first time around. But he just made one bad move after another, constantly lying all the time, and gave up immunity. People rightfully give Erik grief for giving up immunity, but they don’t give Brandon anywhere near the same hatred when he should have known better. I was spoiled to his elimination before I saw the episode and after he won immunity, I was not at all surprised that he would give it up. It was just another in a long line of bad things that he did in that season. He tried to blame the person that he gave immunity to for his elimination even though he didn’t have to do this. Like Ken from Gabon, he just couldn’t fathom his own stupidity. I’ll never know why production brought him back a second time, but he caused his own tribe to give up immunity and vote him out after a childish tantrum. In the unlikely event that he plays a third time, I’m skipping that season. Brandon is the dumbest Survivor player of all time.

Well, I hope that you enjoyed this. I didn’t include James who started playing in China as I felt that he wasn’t too dumb outside of not knowing that he should play one of his two idols. Maybe he is worthy as he was dumb in other aspects and seems even worse in other seasons as just a whiny person. But that’s not really the same as dumb. I hope that there weren’t any other dumb players that I missed. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten Survivor Frenemies

Frenemy: A sometimes friend, sometimes enemy. You see a lot of these on Survivor. They started in the very first season and you see a lot of these people from time to time. Maybe they are normally people who don’t like each other. Maybe they normally do. But they normally form interesting dynamics any way that the game goes. Let’s get to mentioning all of them. I’ll forgo rules and honorable mentions as I feel that any could spoil what does wind up on the list.

#10 Ozzy and Coach from South Pacific- They started out as random returnees in a one returnee per tribe season. While it made no sense that they returned, they did form an interesting dynamic on their season. They sort of worked together at one point, but this didn’t really happen. While it was a forced rivalry, this is what happened sometimes although they worked together other times.

#9 Brenda and Dawn from Caramoan- First they were nice to each other especially after Dawn had a breakdown at one point during the merge. But then everything changed when Brenda sacrificed her and Dawn’s family reward so that everyone else could experience it themselves. Dawn infamously turned on Brenda which lead to fireworks with the fans and at the final tribal council.

#8 Dreamz and Yau-Man from Fiji- It was the most controversial deal in the history of Survivor by its very own promotions: Yau-Man gave his car to Dreamz in exchange for possible immunity in the future. It was so controversial that they got rid of cars as rewards, although that might have been since Dreamz couldn’t pay the taxes on the car and never got it as a result. Dreamz immediately tried to vote out Yau-Man before his would have had to hold up to his deal. When the situation that Yau-Man agreed to came up, Dreamz didn’t hold up his end of the deal and their rivalry was cemented even though it started out due to a very friendly gesture of a free car.

#7 Jonathan and Yul from Cook Islands- First Jonathan betrayed Yul’s tribe by choosing to join the other tribe. Then Jonathan betrayed the tribe he switched to rejoining Yul’s tribe. Yul ending up helping to vote out Jonathan yet still gave him his hat back as a gesture of goodwill. Jonathan voted for Yul to win and that proved interesting as Yul only won by one vote. This was a huge back and forth and it ended well for Yul.

#6 Randy and Bob from Gabon- I’m not entirely sure what all went wrong with their relationship. Maybe Randy just hates too many people. But Bob didn’t help the relationship by giving a fake idol to Randy when Randy was voted out. Bob was about to make amends and get Randy’s vote to win the game. They much have had at least some good will between them.

#5 Peih-Gee and Denise from China- While I’m not entirely sure myself if they were friends, I’m pretty sure that’s how it started out in the beginning. But their relationship deteriorated as it went along as Denise kept treating Peih-Gee worse and worse. And that is why I think that they fit for this.

#4 Tony and Spencer from Cagayan- This relationship went back and forth a lot between them working together and them trying to get each other voted out of the game. Tony wound up being a finalist and Spencer was a jury member with Spencer putting aside any possible hatred between them by giving a good speech as to why Tony should win.

#3 Jenna and Christy from Amazon- You might wonder to yourself: were they friends? That would seem unlikely throughout the season. Yet Christy still seemed to like Jenna compared at least to Matthew since she voted for Jenna to win. There must have been some goodwill between them.

#2 Sue and Kelly from Borneo- The original frenemies, these two were in an alliance until Kelly thought that she was better off without one. Sue felt betrayed by Kelly abandoning them. Kelly tried to make herself look better to the Pagong members, but she still fell short one vote to win. Who cost Kelly the win? It was Sue herself after her speech about why Richard should win.

You might wonder what number 1 would be. Well, there were a lot of good rivalries between friends or friendships between rivals that I thought of when I come up with this list. Between all of them that I thought of and didn’t mention, I decided that one didn’t work with this one player since I wanted to put down their complicated relationship with another player instead. You might wonder then, who do I think were the best frenemies throughout all the Survivor seasons? In my mind, only one of them could possibly come out on top and that's why the number one choice is

#1 Sandra and Russell from Heroes versus Villains- They wound up on opposites sides on their original tribes and Sandra was soon the only person left from her original alliance since everyone else flipped or was never part of it. Then she started manipulating Russell into getting rid of other people in hopes of making it seem like certain things were happening to the heroes that weren’t. She tried to work with the heroes but stayed with Russell. He was too overconfident in his ways and thought that there was no way that she could win the game. He thought wrong and his best frenemy beat him.

Well, that’s all I can think of for this blog post. Did I miss any good ones? The one that was almost in this list that wasn’t was Sandra and Johnny Fairplay from Pearl Islands. I don’t think that there were any other notable ones missed as I felt that they either weren’t friends enough or weren’t enemies enough for the true combo that I was looking for ended up working in the long term. For instance, I don’t think that Terry voting for Aras made them enough friends in the end. I also could have picked Adam and David from their season, but thought that it wouldn’t work either. I guess someone can let me know in the comments if they thought a different frenemy should have belonged here. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.