Do Tribes Mean Anything Anymore?

Often when I watch the show nowadays, I wonder if the fact that certain tribes exist mean anything to the viewer. They probably still mean a lot to the players in the game. But I personally don’t know for sure whether or not they mean much to those watching the show anymore.

Too much of modern Survivor is about showing flashy characters and what they consider good moves. But I think that the problem that makes me wonder if tribes aren’t important anymore is the fact that they switch them around too often and too soon. I mean, we have a tribe set up in one way and by the time very few episodes have passed, the tribe is gone in favor of a new ones.

Still, what I feel is the problem for viewers with tribes nowadays is that we are hardly spending enough time on them. We see more of certain players and not others making time on each tribe more about time with certain players over others. We tend to not see as much dynamics out of the game regarding what all is going on in each tribe outside of the one that is always losing.

Does it make sense to have tribes if they don’t mean anything? Well, Survivor has always had tribes in it at the start and doing anything else would make little to no sense. You’d think that a onetime twist of a season without tribes could be a good experiment, but also wouldn’t really work. Would you do just an individual game the whole season? Would that work or make sense to people? Going without tribes might not work and be even worse than continuing something with little to no meaning.

Does anyone even agree with me about this? I just realize that as this blog has gone on, I have gone from keeping more track of who was on each tribe and keeping track of the tribes’ names to just not caring as much what will go on with tribes, typically calling them their color instead of something else entirely. This is because tribes just don’t last as often as they could in their original format. Then they tend to do another twist regarding the tribes changing yet again before the merge.

What definitely messed up the whole tribe dynamic is the Edge of Extinction. It wasn’t like the outcasts which was a temporary tribe yet was a sort of tribe. It seemed to make more sense in terms of what would happen with that disaster. But even without it, tribes just don’t mean as much to me because we don’t see much out of them like we used to.

I’m going to end the post here as I’m not sure what else I can say without repeating myself over and over again. Do you think that tribes are still important? They still exist and change a lot. Maybe they mean more than it seems to me in the edit over and over again. But I still think that they have lost their meaning and someone, maybe the editors or twist designers, should fix that. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Are Hidden Immunity Idols Used too Much?

I’m starting to wonder if I complain too much about the game nowadays, be it in these blog posts of the most recent hiatus or ponderings about any recent season in general. All I know is that it might be worth posting about the hidden immunity idols and whether or not they have been used too much in the game in recent seasons at hand.

Originally when it appeared partway through Guatemala, the idol was preventative and only used once. It might have been for multiple use when it appeared more regularly in Panama and Cook Islands, but that wasn’t what happened with it since they were effectively never used.

During the China season, James left the game with two idols still in his possession that he never played. He still had them when he was voted out. No idol reentered the game after his elimination. In the next season, Ozzy was voted out with an idol. But this idol was rehidden. Ozzy had left this idol back at camp when he went to the tribal council he was voted out at. Thus, he didn’t have it. But what really lead to the change? Was it them wanting to continue to shake up the game? Was there really a change to how idols were done at all? It can be hard to tell.

There were some notable changes that I noticed in my mind. The first was in Heroes versus Villains. In what might have been an attempt to make more interesting things happened in the game, one idol would always enter the game after another had been played. It was almost like a cycle through of things in a way: one idol out, one back in. This wasn’t the only change.

In Survivor One World, Colton’s idol was gone after he was pulled from the game. Despite the fact that another person in the game had an idol, another one was put in the game. This sort of thing wouldn’t gather any controversy until two seasons later when it happened in Caramoan. Malcolm found an idol while still possessing another one. Many found this rigged.

Ultimately, the idol level didn’t reach a certain horrible level of ridiculousness that you’d think you’d only see on MTV if you like that horrible show until Edge of Extinction. Contrary to what some people might think, idols were never given to select players by production before this season. This time, the person who reentered the game because of the twist would get an idol. While they had to give half of it away for a tribal council, they got immunity whenever they wanted to. This should not have happened the second time at least since that meant automatic immunity the last time it could be played.

This makes us go back to the initial question as to whether or not hidden immunity idols are overused. One would have to argue different things with this point. Are hidden immunity idols good? Do they make for good TV even if they aren’t good? Are more idols better are just another thing many fans will bitch about? And what are the sorts of things that one would expect from more idols versus less?

I can see a problem with there being only one hidden immunity idol in the game. Whoever has it would yield more power than all the other players who don’t have it. They would have a magic bullet that they would know none of the other players had. Thus, having multiple idols in the game makes sense. But how many is too many?

It is worth noting that one person might be able to hold more than one idol if that is an option that is available to them. Thus, they could become even more powerful. But when there are too many idols at points late in the game, that is where we might run into problems.

Survivor: Game Changers might be the most obvious example of this. One player had the immunity necklace. Another had the legacy advantage. Three others all played idols at the final six leaving just one person who was eligible to be voted out. As for Edge of Extinction, it was clear to me and many others that one shouldn’t be able to get an idol that late in the game with others already in play potentially. This is why you’d think they’d know when there are too many in the game.

All I can really say is that it is clear that more idols means more potentially interesting moves, but it also can mean that there are issues because of it such as too many crazy things happening as a result. I think that there are some ways that the producers would need to think of to ensure that idols don’t become just one maddening mess in the game. There doesn’t always have to be a new one every time at least one old one was played. And they should realize that when issues are caused by too many idol at once, maybe they should change what they do in future seasons to make sure that we don’t have too much crazy going on at once. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

The Outcasts versus Redemption Island

I had this post planned for a while now. After Edge of Extinction, I thought that I would do this post at last, even if it doesn’t include Edge of Extinction in it at all. Before it, there were two twists that were done in the game where voted out players got a second chance to play again. I’m going to go through the pros and cons of each of them before mentioning what I think was better.

A good part of the Outcasts twist was the shock of it all. You didn’t know it was coming as a fan until the promo of the episode before it and you wouldn’t have seen it coming as a player unless you were part of the tribe in the first place. They weren’t guaranteed to get a player back in the game unless they came in first or second in the challenge. They had only one chance to attend this tribal council in question. I think that most people, even those that didn’t like the twist, know that the season worked better because it was there in the twist. It was a one and done twist.

A bad part of the Outcasts twist was that too much of it seemed sudden. Parts of it were random, such as who would come back into the game being decided by a vote. The people were now certain to be part of the jury or make the end where they had previously been out before hand.

With the good of Redemption Island, the players in the game knew about the twist before it started for real and some of them learned who was winning what challenge in the game. There were different challenges that one had to do to keep winning their way in the game.

The bad of Redemption Island seems to be easy to figure out. Some argued that it in earlier seasons did not have much of an influence on the game as the winners of Redemption Island would just be voted out of the game again. Some of the challenges just didn’t work as do or die duels. It might not have been considered fair that someone was certain to win their way back in the game. Pretty much everyone thinks that it lasted too long and shouldn’t have been a part of the game after the merge.

Which was better? Well, I think that most people like the Outcasts twist better. I think that I like it better as well. It was more of a onetime thing and made more sense and worked better that way. It made for a more interesting post merge and influenced the game in a way it otherwise wouldn’t.

That’s all for this post of this blog. I don’t know what posts will happen when. I hope that I can finish watching Survivor: Borneo to start watching Survivor: Gabon and blog about that on Sundays. I will have to do that at some point in time. There are other seasons that I might want to get as well in the future. I should be able to explain more in the next post on an episode of a show, be it the newest season or any of the old ones I want to blog about. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.