Survivor: China episode 6: That’s Love, Baby! It Makes You Strong!

In case I haven’t mentioned this as much already, know that I have a Survivor season ordered for the future so I should have the potential to talk about Blood versus Water again. It is currently the plan to have it replace Gabon when I’m done with that on Sundays.

I have an idea to possibly post on my YouTube channel that others could do too. I haven’t done this yet, but it is based on Survivor where you do something like a voting confessional, but with recreations of a ballot since you might not be able to do a ballot legally in some states online. With ballot selfies illegal in some places, you can write down a vote and share with people why you voted that way for that person or issue. Maybe you could share it on TikTok or some other forum like that.

Speaking of politics relating to Survivor, it turns out that producer Mark Burnett supports Trump. This may relate to the time they worked together on The Apprentice. While some don’t want to watch the show of Survivor due to this connection, I don’t care about his support and am not going to let it affect my love of this show. I mean, he is one person who has a relation with the show, but it doesn’t matter that much how he cares about whatever way politically.

What I do care about is an unfortunate affect of coronavirus. There is now a lot of racism against Asians and descendents of Asians because of coronavirus. This should not be happening at all. Just because the virus originated from China doesn’t mean that we should attack those from there or looking like they are from that area.

Now in the last post, we got to Aaron’s vote out from this season that some might consider unfair since it seemed like the deck was stacked against him. This was mentioned in a podcast that I was in once where one of the people successfully argued this as a point. This part starts at around 36:30. You can watch this and see if I picked a bad choice for this category like I think that I did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1P6L5Wab18

It may seem like I’m jumping around from place to place when I mention different challenges in each of the posts that I’m doing to see if they are something that could be done while social distancing or not. Well, you’d be largely correct to think that. But I’m still doing to get to the challenges that start with the word the from Survivor fandom.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Ball_Drop

In this challenge, contestants must balance a ball on a cylinder with ever growing wooden parts to it. This challenge could be done while social distancing. This is one of many ball related challenges that are part of Survivor. I wonder when they took over and became such an easily mocked part of Survivor.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cruel_Sea

This challenge is also known as dress to keel. In it, contestants have to get one ring at a time and then use those rings to land them on a post. This could maybe be done while social distancing, but I’m not sure that it can be, depending on if it is tribal or individual.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Game_is_Afoot

In this challenge, contestants must make a tower and put a flag on it using only their feet. This challenge could be done while social distancing. I wonder if they could do a version of this that would make use of the metric system.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Gauntlet

In this challenge, people compete through something like an obstacle course trying to gain pendants while members of the other tribe attempt to knock them off of said course. This challenge could possibly be done while social distancing.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Home_Stretch

This challenge is also known as Wizard’s staff and home stretch. In it, the rules seem complicated, but you have to get through things such as maybe a net crawl and then find items like tiles or discs before going through more obstacles and then either solving a puzzle to potentially unlock a box or spell out a phrase or possibly landing the discs through a bunch of slots that are there. It is possible that this could be done while social distancing.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Maze

This challenge is also known as obstacle puzzle maze, snakes and ladders, Maya maze, a-mazing Gabon, Meso maze, balance beam maze, roundabout, maybe I’m a maze, and Vin Skully. In it, contestants have to find items and then leave the maze. There is a link to this as a blindfolded version covered elsewhere. This challenge probably couldn’t be done while social distancing unless every contestant were given their own maze or only did it one at a time.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Obstacle_Course

This challenge is also known as double play, wicker ball relay, rats in the rigging, big bad o-course, balance beam maze, Austin’s elemental obstacle course, and tower of power. In it, contestants must complete various obstacles, both physical and mental, to win. This challenge cannot likely be done while social distancing from what I could tell of it.

Now in the last post of me covering this season, I shared a challenge link that was also the name of a song by the same group that did the song Free Bird. This song is called Gimme Three Steps. I am going to share a link to that song here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYhh-avGjpU

You should know that there are other songs to mention, maybe, in other posts, if they have a link to the challenge that I can find and I like the song enough to want it included in this or other blogs in the future at some point in time. I will share them throughout the time in the future if it works out.

TV shows I watch on DVD update: starting in 2021 when I went back to watching these things, I reached a stopping point in mystery choice #8 so mystery choice #5 will be its replacement for now. This also means that NCIS replaces NCIS: Los Angeles and Power Rangers season 3 replaces Parks and Recreation. Again, nothing new is added to the list of things to watch this time. I am hoping that I can whittle down the list to just six choices soon, but we’ll see if that happens or not. There are just a bit of complications that are going on or could go on potentially.

On Saturday after watching the previous episode, I watched The Great Race. I replaced that with The Fugitive. On Sunday, I was busy doing other things for lunch. While I’m annoyed in some places that my Sundays aren’t always used for watching movies, since I’m often using it to spend time with both of my living grandparents who are in their 90s, then I can’t really complain which meant that there was no movie again that Sunday. On Wednesday, I watched no movie which I also didn’t do either that Thursday or Friday. I had the chance and time on Friday due to no new shows, but I didn’t know this in time and ran out of time to see a movie or even roll for one. That takes me to the next week.

On Saturday, I watched The Fugitive. I replaced that with Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom. The next day, Sunday’s movie wound up being Finding Nemo. I replaced that with Finding Dory. I did not watch a movie on Wednesday or Thursday. On Friday, I watched True to the Game. I replaced that with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Now I promised myself that whenever I watch True to the Game, I would share a link from my blog on Elementary since I got that movie to review it for my blog on that show. I mentioned a lot of the episodes that I posted after that in my blog on Madam Secretary until that show ended. Now, here we get to the last post that I posted in that blog. I’ll get back to posting about The Good Wife blog posts in the next post of this blog or later if other weird things about it.

http://adamdeckerelementarytvshow.blogspot.com/2018/06/june-18th-2018s-episode.html

On Saturday, I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I replaced that with Raiders of the Lost Ark. On Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I watched no movies. On Friday, while the movie choice was locked in for the future, I did not see it this week in preparation for a visit with family for the weekend. That meant no movies for me the next Saturday or Sunday. On Wednesday, I wanted to see a specific movie that would not have been on my list of things to watch. But it didn’t work out to see it. Nor could I see something on the main list either.

On Thursday, I watched Tower Heist. I replaced that with The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood. On Friday, I watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I replaced that with Rain Man. On Saturday, I saw The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I replaced that with John Q. On Sunday, I watched Kingsman: The Secret Service. I replaced that with Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

On Tuesday, February 23^rd, 2021, I rolled this episode and watched it. I was regularly updating my TV blog on that day of the week in my quest to phase it out and put it on just Saturdays weekly. I will now have to update my Madam Secretary blog then instead. I will alternate Tuesday posts between the TV and Madam Secretary blogs during this time until the TV blog is updated on the last Tuesday of the month and then just the Madam Secretary blog will be updated then instead.

We begin with Peih-Gee talking about potentially throwing the challenge and wanting to throw the next challenge in anticipation of the upcoming merge. James wants to conserve energy to make sure that he can help win the challenge if he needs to.

Todd talks to Amanda about the hidden immunity idol. They both want it. They then gather for the next reward challenge. At the challenge, Peih-Gee tells Sherea that her tribe is still looking out for her and Frosti. Fei Long wins the challenge and gets to kidnap a member of the other tribe. They take James with them as he now gets to enjoy the reward with them.

At the reward, people enjoy the tea and baths and other things like that. Some call it the best reward ever. But it doesn’t even have loved ones with it. Courtney wanted to be as far away from Jean-Robert as possible. James doesn’t mind being naked in front of others, which Amanda talks about some as his butt is good to her.

Back at Zhan Hu, they realize that Frosti isn’t making eye contact with them and they feel that they have to win immunity. Peih-Gee doesn’t think that Sherea is still on their tribe’s side since they didn’t talk much at the challenge.

Todd approaches James about the idol clue. He convinces James to give the clue to him. They find the idol, but Frosti is there. He is part of this now. He is part of the group. Amanda, Todd, and Frosti know about the idol. James is told to look for the idol at their camp and throw the challenge so that they all vote for him and then nullify his votes. They want to get rid of Jamie while Todd tells Courtney and Denise each about the idol and how they have to win the challenge.

At the immunity challenge, the contestants have to eat Chinese dishes that are not considered good as we get to the challenge at hand. The first round is Peih-Gee versus Frosti eating chicken heart. This might not be too bad, based on the beef heart that I had once in Peru. Frosti and thus Fei Long wins the first point. Courtney and Jamie then eat eel with Jamie and Zhan Hu winning a point. Amanda then faces off against Erik while eating baby turtles. Erik wins a point for Zhan Hu. Denise then faces off against James for eating balut. Denise does terribly at eating it. James is unable to throw his part as a result. The next round is 1,000 year old egg. Erik gets the winning point, just barely besting Frosti.

At Fei Long, Denise is upset that she wasn’t able to win it. Todd gathers with Amanda over getting rid of one of the former Zhan Hu members. Between Frosti and Sherea, they think that they should go with Sherea since they feel they can trust Frosti more and even have him as an ally potentially. Courtney then joins them to “gather water” and is not sure that she likes the plan to vote out Sherea as she wants to vote out Jean-Robert instead. He has a feeling of uneasiness. Sherea doesn’t want to go down without a fight. Todd talks to Amanda about who to vote out since he doesn’t want to be seen as a power player and voted out as a result instead.

We then get to tribal council. Jeff wonders just how much the game changes when a tribe loses and has to vote someone out. Sherea does a lot of attitude to Jean-Robert. She says that people don’t like him and he even admits that he knows this. He thinks of himself as a bad boy, but Courtney finds this to be ridiculous, much like how one would do the laughing reaction on facebook when one finds a point that one has to be ridiculous. Todd seems to fight some with Courtney. Jean-Robert thinks that he’s in a good spot. When the votes are cast, Courtney and Sherea vote for Jean-Robert while Frosti, Jean-Robert, Denise, Amanda, and Todd vote out Sherea. Todd and Amanda picked their side as if they wanted to get rid of Jean-Robert, he would have gone home instead.

On the next Survivor: China, Jamie and Erik might have found an idol, there is more drama between the two members, and the two tribes merge. What else could happen? Well, we already know if we care and we’ll have to see later when this post will be.

Total confessional count: Amanda- 9, Courtney- 7, Todd- 17, Jamie- 13, Peih-Gee- 11, Denise- 7, Frosti- 10, Jean-Robert- 9, Sherea- 11, Erik- 5, James- 9.

New confessionals this episode: Erik- 0, James- 2, Amanda- 4, Courtney- 2, Todd- 6, Jamie- 2, Peih-Gee- 1, Denise- 2, Frosti- 0, Jean-Robert- 2, Sherea- 1.

I don’t think that Sherea had much of a chance after the most unfair swap in Survivor history (which was even worse that what Caramoan’s would be, which also screwed over players in a different yet similar fashion) and it wasn’t helped when Frosti did what he could to stay as part of the new tribe. She did have a chance to work to get rid of Jean-Robert, but it didn’t pan out in the end. Still, I would like her back at some point and I feel that her chances of returning to the game are around 60%.

One of the reasons that I’m always wanting to do a post on an episode every month is so I can do one of these planned calendars where I talk about which blogs will be posted on each date in the upcoming month. The plan might not end up happening for whatever reason, but I still feel like doing it to see if it will be close like that or not. At the moment, only The Good Fight blog posts are locked in that specific dates that I have them at and are not subject to change.

Planned March blog posts

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Not March	1: freebie	2: TV	3: Survivor (maybe)	4: freebie	5: The Good Wife	6: TV
7: CSI: Cyber (maybe)	8: Elementary	9: Madam Secretary	10: Survivor (maybe)	11: The Good Wife	12: Survivor (maybe)	13: TV
14: Survivor (maybe)	15: The Good Fight	16: TV	17: Survivor (maybe)	18: The Good Fight	19: Survivor (maybe)	20: TV
21: Survivor (maybe)	22: The Good Fight	23: Madam Secretary	24: Survivor (maybe)	25: The Good Fight	26: The Good Wife (maybe)	27: TV
28: Survivor (maybe)	29: The Good Fight	30: TV	31: Survivor (maybe)	Not March	Not March	Not March

And here the post ends. I need to juggle all of the blogs that I have and have to put some more effort into some posts than I do in other posts. But I’m always trying to produce some content for it in the end and can only hope that the posts are good enough to some extent as a result, although I’m hoping that it will be better at times than I’ve done. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

How Would Survivor Deal with a Coronavirus Case?

It seems like, if all goes according to plan and what Survivor fandom says is accurate, we will be seeing a new season of Survivor in the future as they are set to start filming Survivor 41 sometime soon. After a year long delay (approximately), it would be nice to see the show again. But now we have a factor that could change things in ways that have never happened on Survivor before. What if there is a case of coronavirus while they are filming this new season or any other ones?

This probably wouldn’t be anything like the typical medical evacuation that we are used to even if the person with the virus would display serious enough to pull them from the game. We’d then have to deal a whole lot with possibly quarantines and filming delays. The weirdest thing that has happened thus far was the two times that they had to pull all of the contestants from the game temporarily due to extreme weather in the area like hurricanes. Would they have to do something like that until the game was given a go ahead to start again?

Plus, there would be more of a problem than simply a contestant or even the host getting it. There are a lot of other people in the show, such as cameramen and other producers that are always off camera, that could get coronavirus and force a shutdown of at least two weeks. What could one even do if there is such a problem like that? It would be hard to know for sure.

Hopefully, they have a contingency plan of some sort. I can hope that they could still do the rest of the season without having to pull anyone or many people without losing too much time. What if a person tests positive and they are then pulled then and there? Maybe it would have to be that way and there is nothing else that could be done, no matter how mild their symptoms might be.

It is hard to know for sure what could be done or would be done. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen and they don’t have to worry about such an event anyways. Otherwise, they need a plan. They’ve had all of this time to form one. If we are to expect more Survivor, we need to be prepared for these things and hope that it can be made in the future. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Winning in a Landslide and Why That’s Common

It is a common complaint among the switch from the final two to a final three that instead of a person bringing a goat to the end, they now bring two. They act as if it is easy for this to happen. But this did not change the problem that happens of a player winning in a landslide.

This didn’t used to be the case. In the first five seasons, only one winner won on a margin of more than one vote. Then in the sixth, we saw the runner-up get only one vote. It then became common for a lot of seasons to happen with blowout votes for the winner. My notes do not yet go up to all of the seasons that have happened thus far. (I’m hoping that it can sometime be caught up to the 40^th season.) But I do know that Ghost Island had the first ever tie for a win. But I’m pretty sure that the last season before that to be decided by just one vote was Nicaragua.

Why is winning in a landslide common? Well, some contestants are popular that make the end and others that are there with them just aren’t instead. Sometimes, a person just can’t seem to overcome whatever issues they have to get many, if any, jury votes. In fact, some people might be lucky to get them at all when people on the jury want to give someone else third place. That is worth talking about in another blog post.

Whatever you consider a landslide and regardless of if you like a person or not, most winners tend to have a lot of votes over the other people who are finalists against them. Considering how we get a lot of people who are likable, at least enough compared to others in the end, it is all the more likely that those people would get votes to win and win in a landslide. And it is probably going to keep happening as the game keeps going on and on. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

How Can Casting go so Wrong?

From what I understand, the first 38 seasons of Survivor were largely cast by just one woman until she was fired for some reason and the first season without her lead to a contestant being ejected from the game. But there are a lot of seasons that have terrible casts. This leads to a question of both how it can happen and how so many bad players wind up in one season.

Regardless of if you feel the same way about me regarding a certain cast of a season, you’d have to admit that some are seen more as bad than others by fans of the show. You wouldn’t think that they’d all get together in one season, but this happens a lot of the time.

Of course, you can’t always strike casting gold and get a cast as likable as the one in Palau or as cunning as the one from Pearl Islands. You can get horrible casts like in Fiji were there are few standouts or the one in South Pacific where there is hardly anyone ever to root for.

This leads to the obvious question: how can casting go so wrong that a whole bunch of bad players are all in one season together? Why are bad players even cast at all? I’m guessing that there is a lot that the producers simply wouldn’t know about a person before they play the show. Only so much can be known from the casting process and you wouldn’t know that much about who a person really is in that short an amount of time.

Should I give them the benefit of the doubt? After all, this does keep happening over and over, there being bad casts of the show. Wouldn’t they do better at weeding out bad players? It is hard to say. One of the factors that one needs to remember is that the earlier seasons that have already been made and aired might have featured some of the better players. If they want to keep doing this show, they’d have to go with some group of people. And they would have to find someone that would work.

Honestly, I still don’t know for sure just how wrong casting can go over time. I think that part of it is just something that needs fixed in the casting process to weed out potentially bad players to prevent there being potentially bad casts. But it is hard to know who a person will be or how a cast will work unless it happens. I can only hope that the problem can be fixed over time and that we don’t have this issue that much again. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.