The Pros and Cons of the New Final Tribal Council Format

Since it seems like the new final tribal council format, where more of an open forum happens instead of the traditional one on one format. While Survivor’s motto has always been outwit, outlast, outplay, this format is actually talked about and used some. But there are some downsides with the change too. I might as well get into the good and bad of this.

Pros: In this one, you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything if you are on the jury as you can always bring up more details the next time around. It can also benefit the finalists who then get more of a chance to respond and talk about their game and why they deserve to win. You don’t have to do more for one person than you would for all of the others should you be more worried about needing some player’s votes more than others. I have noticed that blowout votes have been less common in this new format than has been in others meaning that one is less likely to win in a landside in this format. We had the first ever jury tie this way, which might not be a bad thing.

Cons: People can hog up the conversation in this format regardless of it they are jury members or even if they are finalists. Whereas one is certain to be able to talk in the old format, you might not be able to talk this way. Even if you do, it could be edited out, unlike the old format where a jury member’s speech would never ever be on the cutting room floor. I guess that another flaw of this is that some finalists might be focused on more than others, but I seem to recall that happening in the other format as well. We seem less likely to get more iconic speeches and even questions this way.

Well, that’s all for this blog post. I hope that I have more time to write more of all that I want to in the future. I doubt that I would ever be gone from this or any other blog for a while, but I’ll never know for sure, especially with all that I have planned. I hope that no Wednesdays are missed, but it is possible that random ones will be. Sorry if I seem cryptic as I don’t know everything that will happen. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor Stereotypes Analysis

What do I mean by the title of this post? Well, it’s quite simple, actually. It seems that when it comes to the types of contestants in the game, there are different stereotypes that can appear over and over again. These can imply many different things about a group of people. I will explore the different types of players that we see from time to time, according to the editors, that is. This will not include all of them as I don’t think that I can remember what they are all like.

The black contestant who seems lazy: We see this so often that it makes us wonder if there is some sort of biased against all of these men who play. We often see these people just lying around a lot of the time, perhaps telling others to shut up. Or maybe they are lazy and the editors always want to point it out for some odd reason.

The Asian woman who is always mistreated: I don’t know why we’ve seen this as often as we have. But it seems like so many women who are of Asian descent are always mistreated by the tribe or tribes that they are on. They always seem to be looked down upon or getting tons of votes from other people. This has happened in so many seasons that it can be a bit of a surprise that an Asian woman has actually won the game. Still, it took a while for this to happen.

The super fan: So often, we see people who think that they know everything about the game because they have seen so much about it and have been fans of it, often from a very young age. They often seem to think that they know everything there is to know about the game and use it to their advantage. What these people often don’t realize is that there is a difference between knowing the game and actually playing it. Often, they don’t last or aren’t popular among the other players.

The person who never camped before: Why do we see this from time to time? Why would someone who has never gone camping in their life think that they can do Survivor? Do these people just want to be on TV? Do they think that somehow not having that much knowledge about basic survival skills is going to be a good thing? I don’t get it. I don’t think that we see much of this anymore, but it is still very annoying to hear these people complain all the time about their lack of experience.

The bossy person: These people never seem to last that long most of the time. Sometimes, we do see them last long enough, but almost never do they have a chance at actually winning the game. All they do is order people around and then wonder why they got voted out.

The leader: Not to be confused with the previous grouping, these people like to take charge of their group and bring forth leadership into it. This isn’t always met well with whoever might be on the other side of this. Other times, these people are the clear winners of the game.

The strong person: Often, these people think that they can use their brute strength to just win every challenge they need to beat the game. This isn’t how things work. You can’t win on strength alone. Now that doesn’t mean that it isn’t an asset that you should go without. But I can’t think of anyone who won the game based on strength alone.

The cocky person: There are times when these people win, but more often than not, these people will ultimately fail in some way because of their cockiness. Sometimes it can give you what you need to in order to win the game. But the less people know of this, the better it will be for you.

The woman who thinks she can use sexiness: Ever since Parvati played, it seems like so many women think that they can replicate her success. Very few people can win like a previous winner has. All of these women have things in common. They often aren’t good, notable, and they never seem to win or even make it to the jury. Maybe someone, even a man, could use sexiness to win. But even if it did work for Parvati, it would have only worked one of the three times she played.

The eccentric gay man: It might be a bit sad for lesbians that they never seem to stick out on this show. But the gay men always seem to be such great and eccentric characters that producers will always be casting them and it has nothing to do with appeasing minority standards. They often give us great forms of entertainment such as wonderful confessionals or otherwise great moments that it seems that most of the straight men (and women) are somehow incapable of doing.

The recruit who’s never seen the show before: You might not always know who these people are unless you keep track of certain things as you learn about these people before the season starts to air. But these aren’t always bad players. However, they often come off as very arrogant. I don’t know why the show’s producers would ignore applicants to recruit a person who has never seen the show before. By this point, you should only hire contestants who have seen the show or they shouldn’t be playing it in the first place.

The black woman with attitude: “I will always wag my finger in your face!” Thankfully, these people are not seen as much anymore. I don’t know if they always seemed to just come off this way to others in the game or if they really did seem like they were full of attitude of some sort. I don’t know what else there is to say about this, just that I hope it doesn’t appear again.

Well, that’s all for this post. Did I cover them all? Do you think that I left out any important ones? Are any of these wrong? Maybe I only think that some of these are real stereotypes when they actually aren’t. If you care enough to comment, let me know what you think. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

The Death of the Survivor Auction

Maybe you noticed its absence at first or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you care or maybe you don’t. One thing is for sure: the Survivor auction is gone and doesn’t appear to be coming back. It had only showed up in about half of the seasons anyways. But then it stopped showing up for good. Why is it gone? Well, we might as well delve into that here.

Sometimes we just have to deal with the fact that old Survivor elements will go away over time. We saw that with the rites of passage, which never seemed to work when they arrived at contestants that they didn’t know. Still, it was a nice way of us remembering the players from before the finale.

One may wonder if something stopped working right with the whole process of the Survivor auction that caused them to get rid of it. Let’s go back to the last time that it was used. The season was Worlds Apart. There was an opening twist at the auction where a person got bought out and then got a secret award back at camp. But this leads to problems later. So did more of the auction, but less so. The main thing that could be received from the auction was that too many people wanted a secret advantage in the game. Now you’d think that they could just do an auction without one. But why do one at all?

I don’t know if I can make a case for why the auction should return. It lead to a lot of weird things in past seasons and could even make things lopsided at times in ways of some sort. I don’t like how people could just sent others to Exile Island and get all of their money. I do wonder very briefly why that rule didn’t appear with Ghost Island, but they realize that the auction doesn’t work anymore.

Why doesn’t it work? And did it ever work? There would be a lot of bidding on items that people did not know what they really were. Thus, they could wind up with trap items that they wouldn’t really want. People could mess up the letters to home bit for the other players. This could lead to a rigged system that the players would know and then exploit instead.

The biggest problem was that people would just save all of their money until the end when the biggest item of the night was up for sale. The producers decided to make it more interesting the last two times the auction appeared. Of course, it made sense to get rid of the rule where contestants could pool money as soon as advantages like in the next challenge or secrets to idols were available. Still, one person just buying whatever they wanted, immediately if they wanted to, seemed like a bad idea.

Now why couldn’t they change the rules? I’m not sure. Maybe it would have gotten too complicated and made it too hard to keep track of everything. It would have been too hard or taken out all of the fun that it is supposed to be. If there are too many flaws with something, it might be better to just start over from scratch. Remember the Articles of Confederation?

Well, that’s about it for this blog post. The auction on Survivor was a good thing at one point. But then it really stopped working well. Rather than try to fix it or get rid of what broke it, the producers must have thought it would just be better to go without it for future seasons. I doubt that we will see it again. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

What Other Island Twists Could They Do?

If Ghost Island had anything good to it, it is that it makes me wonder what other twists they could do with islands in the future. We had islands where people get exiled and islands where people who got voted out sought redemption and could get back in the game. But what other twists could an island play into in the future? Here are my thoughts on the matter as I come up with some of my own.

Foresight Island: Imagine getting a glimpse at what is to come in the game. That’s what this island could be all about. People are sent here and they will learn information about what is to come in the game. It could be about upcoming twists, challenges, or anything that could be deemed interesting. But it would not just be a clearly painted picture. It would be some sort of unclear thing that they would have to figure out or be confused about.

Curse Island: In this twist, the exiled person would be confronted with three things: a challenge, a time limit to complete the challenge, and a curse that would either be affected on himself should he lose the challenge or anyone of his choosing if wins. It would take the theme of reversing the curse, but use other newly made twists of whatever the producers come up with.

Luxury Island: One of my ideas for a season involves it being one tribe from the very beginning with the members randomly divided for reward and immunity challenges. In case there are an odd number of people in the game, this would be used as a special reward place that they could go to as they enjoy immunity and some limited comforts before they have to go back into the main game.

Espionage Island: Imagine if what you say or do could be witnessed by someone else in the game. If you are sent to this island, you would get to see footage from the other tribe’s camp or any type of normally hidden thing that the always filming camera would capture and get to witness it for yourself. People would have to be way more careful about what they say and do if they know it will be shown to anyone who winds up on this island.

Well, that’s all that I can think of right now for this blog post. Maybe there are other twists that could work as well. Then again, maybe none of these would work out. Some islands could be rewards that a person on the winning tribe could go to instead of punishment that someone on the losing tribe would have to go to instead. We’ll see what happens. I was not a fan of Ghost Island so I hope that they do some more interesting twists instead. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.