Top Ten Player Turnarounds

Well, I need to give myself more time to write posts in the future. Otherwise, it’s like I’m back in school and am doing all of the work the day the assignment is due. I really hope that I can keep up with all of the posts in this and other blogs of mine.

Anyways, what do I mean by player turnarounds? I decided to go with a more broad definition of it for this post. I’m going to include people with sucky games at the beginning who had better games more towards the end. I’m also going to include some people with terrible games the first time around who did better when they played in the future. I hope that I can come up with a good list in the end as I do not think that some of my planned ideas are going to work out as posts after all.

#10 Burton from Pearl Islands- Admittedly, he got a chance that was not offered to most Survivors in the past. But once he got back in the game, he did much better and wound up winning challenges and he became a threat to win. I’m still surprised he hasn’t played a second time.

#9 Cirie from Panama- I’m not honestly sure if she started out bad when she played the first time. All I do hear is that she got off the coach and didn’t seem to do much before playing Survivor the first time around. The fact that she made it all the way to fourth place on that is pretty noteworthy.

#8 Spencer from Cagayan- Jeff Probst hated this guy so much the first time that he thought that there was no way that he could win. And when Spencer played the game, he did come pretty close to winning. First, he was on a terrible tribe. But he could have done better if only things were a bit better for him.

#7 Lillian from Pearl Islands- She went from being on a horrible tribe to voted out of the tribe to back in the game to making it to the end as a finalist. Can you imagine being that terrible at the beginning and then doing wonders at the end?

#6 Amber from Australia then All-Stars- This and the next choice are those that were more obscure players in the first season they played and then winners the second time around. Who would have known who she was the first time around or consider her worthy enough to play again? Not many of us would have pegged her as the winner the second time around. But she was.

#5 Sarah from Cagayan then Game Changers- It is hard to peg for sure when her game failed the first time around and what got her voted out. Only she did much better the second time around. While she was the victim of a flip the first time around, she was the master of flips the second time.

#4 Mike from Worlds Apart- At one point, things seemed hopeless for him. He put himself into a bad hole and it seemed unlikely that he would get out of it. But he did what all he could and wound up being the one who came out on top by beating the axis of evil.

#3 Jenna from Amazon- She even wanted to quit at one point towards the end. She was up against a lot of great players and managed to beat them all. Not only that, but she got one of her greatest enemies to vote for her to win. No one before her won in a landslide. Why is she so hated?

#2 Denise from Philippines- First, your tribe fails to win a single challenge. Then, your tribe is dissolved. Next, your new tribe goes on a losing streak. After that, you have to attend every remaining tribal to stay in the game. People would know that you are a threat and wouldn’t have much reason to keep you around. Only, you do wind up staying around and wind up winning the game.

#1 Chris from Vanuatu- Sometimes you have to wonder how after such a terrible performance at the very first challenge of the game, you survive the first vote. But then, the women outnumber you at the merge of the game causing you to be the last man standing. With battle of the sexes being a main theme of the season, you’d think that you would be an easy target and the women would battle it out for the win. Instead, you wind up outlasting everyone until you win the game.

I hope that this is a good post. Sorry if I shouldn’t have included multiple people from the same season in this post. I hope that people understood this post. If you check the archive, you will see that I did one about redeemed contestants and I didn’t really want to include them in this post. That is all that there is for me to say this time around. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten International Twists that Should Appear on the US Version

If you know about international versions of Survivor, you know that they do some twists that the US version hasn’t done. A lot of the twists that appeared in the US version originally appeared in foreign versions of the show before they appeared in this version. Since I looked up information on Wikia and Wikipedia about what would work, then I thought that I would tell you about the top ten twists from international seasons that I thought would work well in this one.

#10 elimination challenges: These have been done at random places in the game in other versions of Survivor. They have been done at the beginning where the challenge would determine who would stay in the game and get to compete. They have also been done even later in the game towards the final four where whoever didn’t last would be sent to the jury. I don’t know if it is a good idea as any of the others so I only have it at number 10.

#9 tribe votes out member of other tribe: An unfortunate thing happened after a person was voted out of the Swedish version of Survivor: she killed herself. With them thinking the rejection of being voted out of her own tribe might have been the cause of this, they changed the rules so that it would be the contestants on the other tribe who would vote out members of the losing tribe. People have thought for a long time that the twist should be done on the American Survivor. I might add a caveat where it would happen at a double tribal council with both tribes getting to do it to each other.

#8 separate contestant: A player once learned that he would be starting out on his own and would have to build a raft if he wanted to compete in the actual game that was taking place. He was able to do this even though it took him four days. The contestant joined a tribe that won a reward challenge and was then able to compete with them for the rest of the game. I don’t know if the tribe knew what they were competing for in the reward challenge or if the extra contestant was the only thing that they were going to win potentially.

Tangent: Something about what I don’t know about this twist makes me think of a good idea for another twist. Imagine a reward challenge where the contestants didn’t know what they were competing for. What would the stakes of a challenge be like where they don’t know what the reward is?

#7 the cursed pearl: There are some variants on this twist. Typically, there will be a normal pearl that would count as an extra vote against you. But you better not lose it or it would count as two extra votes against you. Then there is the blood pearl which is pretty much the same rules with an additional vote for each time it is used. There is also the white pearl with the power to take a vote away from you that I’m guessing wouldn’t count if you lose the pearl. I don’t know the rules with who would get it and what limitations would be with it. But I do know that it would put people on their guard to not get the pearls and not lose the pearls that have negative effects.

#6 temptation challenges: What is different about this? Well, one would compete in a challenge or at least be given a chance to compete. Only there are negative affects for taking the temptation. You would know what the consequence of the challenge is so you know if the risk is worth taking or not. It might take out some of the issues with it by knowing too much, but it would seem like an interesting idea regarding it.

#5 the joker: This is a type of twist that would keep people alert in the game. A random person would get to join the game sometime through it. Now these people are normally unable to win since they have not been part of the game the whole time. But they are there to mess the game up and keep people on their toes. They are also used as a contingency plan at times and maybe would be able to win the game if they were replacing a late game quit or explosion. The way that I’d like to see it used is at the final 11 using the loved ones challenge where the winning person would enter the game as a joker.

#4 the veto armlet: Here’s another one that would shake up the game. If you are given the veto armlet, you are not able to vote at the next tribal council. I don’t know the rules with giving it like if you are given it if you are able to then give it to whoever you want except for maybe the person who gave it to you. You’d have to be careful not to piss someone off or your vote will be taken away.

#3 the black vote: Revenge! This one is all about revenge. The moment you are voted out of the game, you would get to cast the black vote and it would be counted at the next tribal council against that person unless they had immunity. You’d have to be careful when blindsiding someone or they will get to vote against you one last time.

#2 individual tribe from beginning: This twist has been done in foreign versions of this show. They have ways of resolving the odd number of contestants while regularly switching up the remaining people in the game. It would go away to the normal game later on into it. We have heard people talking about this for a long time. Is there any reason why they haven’t done this yet?

#1 location from country: While some might think this is generic, it is such a wonderful type of idea that you have to wonder why it hasn’t been done before. You could start with three tribes: one with people from the Midwest, another with people from the east coast, and another with people from the west coast. Or you could do rural versus urban versus suburbia, even if it seems like they already did this in Worlds Apart. It would be a good idea to me to start with where people were in the country.

There are other twists that I thought about putting in here, but I don’t think that they would work in the American version. Tribe x seems too complicated to work. They could try Survivor in a cold place like those in Norway did once, but I doubt it would work. It would seem too dangerous to me. Another one that I read about was banishment, but it seems too similar to Exile Island to be much different. They also did twists with contestants from other reality shows competing on one, but I just don’t think it would be a good idea. I hope that you liked my list and I haven’t missed any good twists that other seasons did. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten Boldest Moves

In stark contrast to the dumbest moves that Survivor players have done that I’ve talked about before in this blog, I will look at the other end of the spectrum and think about all of the huge moves that a player has made that has benefited them and/or others that were very risky moves in general. This is a list of the ten boldest moves in Survivor history (thus far, at least). Some of these are looking at a dumb move from a different perspective. But all of these are huge moves that paid off. I hope that I didn’t miss any important bold move that I should have.

#10 Brian betraying his allies- As much as I will always hate Brian, I have to admit that few people could be as despicable as he was and still win the game. He had two allies that he ultimately betrayed in order to advance his own game. And still, his allies didn’t feel betrayed, but felt that he had done good in the way that he played and admired him for doing what he needed to. He betrayed his friends and still won the game in the end.

#9 Tony’s idol lie in Cagayan- You have a super idol, but others don’t know what the rules with it are. You don’t have to be honest about its powers. Thus, you can make people think that it has other powers than what it actually has. With it, you can make it seem like you can still use it even when you can’t. And that was one of the many ways that Tony used to advance in the game.

#8 Coach getting John to switch sides- The move was so illogical. If there was a tie, you would have a 2 in 7 chance of your side drawing a rock. If you flip to the other side, you are certain not to win as they will cut you loose the first time they don’t need you anymore. Sure, your own side may hate you too and you probably do not have a chance of winning with them either. But Coach was able to get John to switch to the other side and his side ultimately won because of it.

#7 Colby’s causing the tie on himself- A strategic vote can be risky to cause if you have to make yourself the target. But the tribes were evenly split after the merge and Colby had no votes against him. The rules at the time said that previous votes would eliminate a person. So he convinced the other tribe to vote for him while his tribe was united against a person with previous votes.

#6 Sarah’s flipping- In Game Changers, Sarah made a lot of risky moves and turned on people a whole lot of the time. And yet, she won. A lot of flippers are known as not being able to win the game because others don’t like being betrayed. Sarah won while doing so.

#5 Boran throwing a challenge- In general, throwing a challenge is a risky move that probably shouldn’t be done as you will lose the challenge and won’t be able to continue without voting out a person. And yet, when Boran became the first tribe to do it, they got rid of a troublemaker unanimous and the tribe still lasted long into the game. In fact, the entire final four was from this tribe.

#4 Natalie’s idol gamble in San Juan del Sur- If things didn’t go according to plan, Natalie would have gotten voted out had the person she wanted to work with decided to turn on her. Natalie gave up her idol for another person to play. This helped both of their games, ultimately. But Natalie won the game and this risk was a good one.

#3 Russell risking elimination to save Parvati- While this move is commonly and correctly seen as a dumb move from Tyson’s perspective, few people look at it from Russell’s side. If this move didn’t turn out the way he wanted, he would have gotten voted out while playing his idol on a different player. But he was able to convince someone to cast an extra vote on Parvati and he kept him and her safe as a result.

#2 Vecepia’s flipping- As stated before, flipping is generally thought of as a bad thing. Kelly might have lost the first season in part because she had flipped. But Vecepia was the first player who had gone from one side to another and back again while still managing to win with that strategy.

#1 Richard throwing the final immunity challenge- This might have been the first truly bold move to have paid off. Richard had a lot to lose if people understood his cockiness and voted him out as a result. But he knew that whoever won the challenge was going to go to the end with him. What, then, was the point of winning? He made a huge move and it was one of the many reasons why he won.

Well, that’s about it for this blog post. I hope that I didn’t miss anything that people think that I should have included. It is hard to remember all of the past seasons and think of what all happened. Maybe there was something that I didn’t think was bold that others did. I guess that I’ll see if anyone has an opinion on this. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Former Survivor Contestants who Hate the Show (or at Least Aren’t Fans Anymore)

The statement that James from China made at the most recent reunion show speaks to something that does happen a lot in Survivor. He didn’t want to watch the show anymore after his dumb decision that season he first played. This might explain why he was so terrible the third time he played. He must have wanted to be disliked and not brought back again. But this speaks to an interesting thing that happens with the show. How many former contestants don’t like it?

It would seem that Greg Buis of the first season has never watched any other season of the show than the one he was on. Well, that’s what people say and I have no way of verifying the information. I do not think that he hates the show, but do you call that what a fan would do?

After the horrible opening twist in Palau, one of the victims of it, Jonathan, seemed to what nothing to do with the show anymore. They had originally wanted him to play in Guatemala, but he wouldn’t do it. This might have helped ruin Wanda’s chances of playing again. We don’t know for sure if he was a bad player or not since he only did one challenge that he didn’t even know would count.

It is likely that Sue Hawk will never have any further association with Survivor. She was doing good with it the first time around and was considered a good and iconic part of it, with some still thinking good of her the first time she played. After the second time, she will probably never be seen on Survivor again and not just because she quit it. It is unlikely someone will get her to talk about the show again.

Maybe it is the first season that brought out a lot of people who didn’t like the show anymore. I just know that I will not be able to mention all of the people who this might apply to. Matt Elrond does not want any further association with Survivor to the point that he doesn’t exist anymore. He’s now a man named Wyatt Nash. You may think that sounds crazy, but it’s true. Others don’t want to associated with Survivor because there is more to their life than that.

I don’t know what else there is to say in this post. I hope to get other posts written for the future. I need to make time to write this and other blogs because I just need to stay caught up and not write most of these the day of like this one. But I guess as long as you can see what I write in time, then it won’t matter when I wrote it. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.