Survivor: Blood versus Water- A Look Back

While I still have to finish with two Gabon things considered episodes by not worth blogging about in my mind, I’ve decided to prepare for its replacement. I am going to blog about this season of Survivor again. While I have already blogged about this season when it originally aired, I’m going to write about it again and cover more of what I’d like to and possibly haven’t already before.

 

What this season was like: While not the first season to feature half returning players and half new players, we got a twist as each returning player started with a relative. But they were on the other tribe and had to compete against them. Redemption Island returned and a loved one could switch with the player that was voted out, although only one person was foolish enough to do it. There weren’t reward challenges as a result for most of the season.

 

Why it was good: The dynamic of this season was interesting and not the type of thing that you could have ever seen on the show before. While there weren’t loved ones challenges as a result, we got to see a lot of connections between the season and players adapting to their loved ones being gone from the game and in some cases, having to do it themselves, whether by winning a duel against them or, in one case, voting that person out.

 

Why it was bad: Redemption Island, while actually working for once this season, did take away from a lot of what was going on with the main game. Too much of the early alliance that dominated was only there because of the early vote outs. Colton quitting was a downer. While Caleb could have turned into more of a dominate part of the game after that, it turned into a one big move before the rest of his game fizzled out. He never got to play again so we won’t know what he could have been like again.

 

My overall thoughts: This was quite a good season in my mind. It may not have giving me some of what I wanted out of some of the players, like my favorite Survivor contestant being out first, but it did do what I wanted: made Redemption Island work, and gave us likeable new players not overshadowed by most of the returning players.

 

Current ranking of the season and why: I have this season ranked as 9 out of 40 seasons. It remains a top ten season in my mind because so much of it was done well with memorable moments, such as the first rock draw in over 20 seasons, and not too many things wrong with it.

 

Well, I won’t know for sure when you’ll start seeing posts on this season and it being in the first six choices of what I want to watch will actually harm its ability to be watched. But now you know that it is on my radar. Of course, I’ll have to post in the start of 41’s posts why Sundays may be a problem for posts of this blog as I’m yielding it to another blog, which I’ll explain there. I still want Sundays open for potential posts of this blog in case there are delays with when a regular post is supposed to appear before the start of Advent. Too much of this is in flux, but I will explain what’s up with the new job that I have now that won’t affect me hopefully like other jobs have in the past. We’ll have to see what will happen in the future. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor: China episode 8: High School Friend Contest

Something that may have stuck out to some Survivor fans was that after Guatemala, the eleventh season, there were ten seasons that had returning players and not one of them had one that originally was from the Guatemala season. In the 40^th season of Survivor, one of those players, mainly Danni, finally played the game again representing her season after a 29 season gap.

Now those of us would have to note that none of the Caramoan fans have been back yet and thus none of the original players from that season have yet returned. It is now the oldest season of Survivor not to have a player back from it yet. Now based on how long it took for an original contestant from Guatemala to return again, I would think that a 29 season gap after the 26^th season would be a potential 55^th season. I can hope that Survivor would last that long. While I’ve complained some about how they did not have an original player from Guatemala back until they did, I will wait until season 55 of this show to complain about the lack of returning players from Caramoan should one not happen by then.

I was hoping that I could be more updated on the shows that I had watched on certain days of the week, but while I can do this and still will, I have to note that things will be outdated in the schedule back from when it was on. I’m going to cover all of the Sunday shows that I watched from January all the way to the summer of 2021. This is largely to cover Easter and picked because Sundays was when they aired Charmed at one point. I had covered Fridays which had Charmed too.

It was on Sundays with Batwoman after they were done airing what became the first half of The Outpost season 4. I watched all of them. I also saw the FOX shows of The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, and the new airing The Great North. I did not like any other FOX show on during that time. I did not see any of the NBC shows then. The only ABC show that I watched then was The Rookie. I also saw the shows of 60 Minutes, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, and The Equalizer on CBS. I also saw the CW show of Legends of Tomorrow which went into the summer. I might cover Thursday shows next since that is also when The Outpost was on at one point. It is on then now.

Let’s get to the idols from Winners at War part 3. Kim found an idol, gave half to Sophie, got it back, gave it to Denise, and Denise wasted it, although she had votes against her, just not enough to matter with the majority vote getting not playing an idol.

Before I get to the challenges that start with the letter J, know that it was rolled versus others that were not. The other letters that I felt worked in this grouping were m or r. I should be able to get to them in the other posts on this season or other seasons of the show. 

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

This challenge was also known as the great escape, pirate prison break, and back in the saddle. In it, contestants have to do stuff to get out of a cell, be it individually or in a tribal fashion of sorts. The challenge was combined with quest for fire in Cambodia. It was also combined with house of the holey as mentioned in a previous post, in two seasons, I believe, as it was used as the edge of extinction challenge both seasons that was used. In fact, being featured as a Redemption Island duel and as the challenge that the outcasts appeared in, it was the challenge used most when voted out players were fighting to get back in the game. It could be done while social distancing. 

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

In this challenge, people have to jump and score a goal against another player defending against this. It seems like a simplified version of the basketball variant horse only with a defender. It could be done while social distancing, I think, despite how close the defender and thrower are in this. 

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

This challenge is also known as word forward. In it, the players must race through obstacles while getting puzzle pieces and solve the puzzle at the end, like numerous other challenges. This could possibly be done while social distancing. There is a song by this same name.

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

This challenge is also known as outwit, outplay, outrig; share the wealth, and snake, rattle, and roll. In it, contestants have to solve a series of tasks in the jungle to win. It is possible that this could be done while social distancing. Note that most versions have two contestants tied together, so this would not be the case if they were trying to social distance.

Now in this old Elementary blog post of mine, I included an anti-drug message, NCIS reference, I said the phrase “burrito land” for some reason, and I mentioned animal videos for future posts. I don’t know what I meant by burrito land so I googled it to see what I might have meant. 

http://adamdeckerelementarytvshow.blogspot.com/2018/07/june-25th-2018s-episode.html

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=JeYtYK_qA6SD9PwPi_qruAk&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYC30NehnLmnq3dem9LTIORej7_OUJ0lI&q=burrito+land&oq=burrito+land&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyAggAMggILhDHARCvATIGCAAQFhAeMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjIGCAAQFhAeMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjIGCAAQFhAeMggIABAWEAoQHlCMuAFYjLgBYKG_AWgAcAB4AIABSYgBSZIBATGYAQCgAQKgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjvkOznxfLuAhWkAZ0JHQv9CpcQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

burrito land - Google Search

Now I had mentioned that a challenge from Survivor sounded similar to the song Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin. If you want to know what that song sounds like, then listen to that here. I’m only sharing songs here that I felt that I like. Thus, others aren’t in here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDQ1FUUjPs

While looking through different songs, I notice that one of them sounded similar to a song called Life’s Been Good by Joe Walsh. This musician is not to be confused with the Republican politician of the same name who ran for president in 2020. I have heard this song a lot of times on the radio. I think that it is often played on classic rock stations. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ocviQ3ux0

Now I’m going to start sharing animal videos as of this post and I’ll share them in every post covering this season from this point forward. I’m going to switch between songs relating to animals (or that could be it should it not be what it seems) and sharing other videos that sort of relate to a animal that are not a song. Today, I’m sharing the Baha Men song Who Let the Dogs out? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkuu0Lwb5EM

Movie update: On Wednesday, I watched Toy Story 3. I did not finish watching it then and thus didn’t see a movie from Thursday’s list then. On Saturday, I watched a home video and not a movie from the list of things to watch. On Sunday, I watched Titanic. I replaced that with Stuart Little. On Monday, I did not watch a movie.

On Wednesday, I watched Celtic Woman: A New Journey. I replaced it with Celtic Woman: Songs from the Heart. On Thursday, I watched Flight of the Phoenix. I replaced that with Avatar. On Saturday, a last minute family gathering prevented any movies from being watched then. On Sunday, I was working as you might see in a future YouTube video on my channel. On Monday, I chose not to watch any movie as I wanted to spend time doing other things. I also thought that I could be doing two jobs that day, but thankfully, this didn’t happen as it would have been far too much for me to do at once.

Now it’s been a very long with me not being finished watching any of the shows on DVD or changing things from the list. While I want to finish some things, if I don’t finish the right things on the right lists, then I won’t be able to add the third list that I want to for a while, if ever. You do want to see that so I can start writing about Survivor: Borneo again. I forget what the current mystery choice was numbered, but I finished watching it and replaced it with mystery choice #10. As usual, you’ll have to read my blog on The Good Wife to read what the replacement is. Just know that Survivor: China is still the same number on the list as it was before. This switch also means that NCIS: Los Angeles season 1 replaces NCIS season 8 and Parks and Recreation season 1 replaces Power Rangers season 3.

On Wednesday, I watched Toy Story 4. I didn’t replace that with anything so I could watch that again with commentary. Now I had shared the CinemaSins videos on the first three Toy Story movies in my blog on CSI: Cyber. Now, I’m going to share their video on Toy Story 4. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAZ6eLhd0U4

On Thursday, I watched Avatar. I replaced that with Bella, which one of my pastors is lending me. On Saturday, a family trip prevented me from watching any movie. On Sunday, I watched Courageous. I replaced that with Bend it Like Beckham. On Monday, I decided against watching a movie.

On Wednesday, I watched Baby Boom. I replaced that with Air Force One. I still have no idea just how many of my neighbor’s old movies I’ll be adding to the list over the course of time. But that is one of them as are most that you wouldn’t recognize as much if you are familiar with the choices.

On Thursday, I watched The Omega Code. I replaced that with The Omega Code 2. On Saturday, I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I replaced that with A Few Good Men. On Sunday, I was busy with lunch spending time with my grandmother so I didn’t have time for a movie. On Monday, I chose not to watch a movie from my list so I could rent one and watch that instead.

On Wednesday, I watched I am Sam. I replaced that with Ice Age. I can’t always decide whether or not to watch one of my neighbor’s old movies or just add one of my own ones. Well, both are mine now at this point anyways, but I ignored the other options of her old movies this time around.

On Thursday, I watched Spaceballs. I replaced that with That Darn Cat. On Saturday, I watched The Little Mermaid. I replaced that with One Night with the King. On Sunday, I watched nothing to once again spend time with family during lunchtime. On Monday, I chose not to watch a movie so I could see more of this show instead.

That means it was Monday, 8-23-2021 when this episode was rolled again. It is a rigged roll as I think that every roll of Survivor this year has been a rigged one thus far. I have a lot of them. I’ll tell you if I’m out of them, but won’t if the roll isn’t rigged.

We begin with Jean-Robert worried that he was about to go home over Jamie’s idol play. James seems to mock him over and over again. He feels that they still need to work with Jean-Robert. James thinks that his original tribe mates need to stick together. He thinks that the other tribe is only here to win a high school friend contest. Amanda talks about how good a position James is in due to him having both of the idols which could take him to the top five.

Next comes the reward challenge. Jean-Robert picks James, Peih-Gee picks Frosti, James picks Todd, Frosti picks Erik, Todd picks Amanda, and Erik picks Courtney leaving Denise unpicked and unable to win the reward challenge. Jean-Robert, James, Todd, and Amanda is one team, the yellow one. Peih-Gee, Frosti, Erik, and Courtney is the other team, the red one. The yellow team wins both rounds and wins the challenge as a result. The winning team gets a scroll to read as well.

The yellow team gets to see a 1,000 year old idol. Jean-Robert reads the scroll about the hidden immunity idol. Todd points out that Jean-Robert doesn’t know about James having the idols and Jean-Robert didn’t even know about the idols. They talk about what to do with the idol clue. James does not want to take it with them. The others secretly mock Jean-Robert in confessionals.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as another Survivor blogger once said at one point, if not still, Denise is upset that nobody picked her for the challenge. As usual, the group gathered wants to form an alliance that probably won’t last until the end of the episode. This time, they do have a majority. Denise openly states that she will go with whoever she feels is best for her, be it those gathered with her now or those on the reward. A chicken is seen with a creature in the background. And here I was thinking that Chicken was already voted out of this season. I might want to do a post on animal imagery at some point.

Jean-Robert spends time that night looking for the idol and wants a trump card of sorts. Todd is annoyed by everyone, hating both Jean-Robert and James. He talks to Amanda. He wants to get James to be voted out without playing either idol. Frosti likes being seen as a swing vote. They want to make sure that James doesn’t win immunity.

Speaking of immunity, that is exactly what is happening next. They have to wade in the water in order to get to the challenge. This is an endurance challenge that oddly features them sitting. They can’t touch the lever in front of them or anything other than the barrel. Jean-Robert talks about an itch which then annoys others. He is still out first with Denise out second. James, after making a whole lot of weird noises, falls out of the challenge as most of us thought that he would. Erik is out after that. Peih-Gee is the next one out then Amanda’s carelessness gets her disqualified. Todd is out. This leaves Courtney and the singing Frosti. Courtney is lazy and hasn’t moved as a result. Frosti is out last giving Courtney the win. This seems like the easiest endurance challenge of them all.

Courtney talks about her immunity challenge win. Peih-Gee hopes that she will last. She shouldn’t be too concerned about her spot in the game. Jean-Robert lies and says that he has the idol. Or does he actually think that he has it? Erik says that James has the idols since Erik snooped through things. Now Jean-Robert wants to turn things on James. Jean-Robert confronts James with this information.

Jean-Robert claims that he knew this information on his own. James doesn’t want to work with Jean-Robert saying that it would be the dumbest move in Survivor history to work with Jean-Robert. I guess that James would be an expert on historically bad Survivor moves. Oh, wait. That’s a spoiler. Some don’t know whether or not Jean-Robert will be voted out and James isn’t sure he should even bring his idols or at least one of them to camp. Those are often bad moves.

At tribal council, Peih-Gee and Erik are the only ones who brought their stuff. This is baffling to me. Even if I had immunity, I’d still bring my things to tribal council because I wouldn’t know if there would be a surprise second round of voting with someone else immune or not. In all other situations, I would never be so cocky to think that it couldn’t be me.

Courtney likes having immunity. James thinks that he’s a threat, but talkers are more of a threat. Jean-Robert thinks that it would be frustrating to be in the shoes of Peih-Gee or Erik. Erik says that people have to be more aware of what’s going on in the game by thinking ahead. Jean-Robert thinks that he is the local jerk and is worried that an idol could shake things up in the game. Amanda doesn’t like coming to tribal council. Who does?

We then get to the votes cast in the game. Denise votes for Peih-Gee. Peih-Gee, Erik, and Jean-Robert all vote for James. Meanwhile, James, Frosti, Amanda, Courtney, and Todd all vote for Jean-Robert and he is voted out of the game. I can’t understand why Denise voted the way she did. Tribal lines are gone now according to Jeff. It’s a whole new game.

On the next Survivor, Todd doesn’t like people, Peih-Gee and James get into a fight, and the rest of the tribe learns something crazy after tribal council happens. But what is going on? And did the promo reveal the fact that Frosti gets voted out in the next episode when they showed the shots of people after tribal council?

Total confessional count: Jean-Robert- 15, Erik- 7, James- 18, Amanda- 14, Courtney- 11, Todd- 23, Peih-Gee- 15, Denise- 8, Frosti- 12.

New confessionals this episode: Denise- 1, Frosti- 1, Jean-Robert- 4, Erik- 1, James- 5, Amanda- 4, Courtney- 2, Todd- 3, Peih-Gee- 1.

Jean-Robert was clearly the resident asshole of this season in my mind, although Dave could give him a run for his money. What are his chances of playing the game again? I’d give it about a 35% chance of him playing Survivor again.

You may notice something different in my schedule of the next month’s planned blog posts. There will be a new blog that I will be starting. Also note that I had done posts on Borneo on Tuesday and have one planned for Sunday for Blood versus Water. This is because I want both Tuesdays and Sundays open for posts of this blog potentially. Sundays were closed after I finished watching Gabon. I want these open in case I have to delay a planned post from the Wednesday that it airs to a different day of the week.

Planned September blog posts 

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Not September	Not September	Not September	1: freebie	2: The Good Fight	3: The Good Wife	4: TV
5: CSI: Cyber	6: Elementary	7: Madam Secretary	8: Survivor (maybe)	9: freebie	10: The Good Wife	11: TV
12: Survivor (maybe)	13: freebie	14: Survivor (maybe)	15: Survivor (maybe)	16: freebie	17: Survivor (maybe)	18: TV
19: Survivor (maybe)	20: freebie	21: Survivor (maybe)	22: Survivor (season 41 posts begin)	23: freebie	24: Survivor (maybe)	25: TV
26: CSI: Vegas (new blog’s first post)	27: freebie	28: Survivor (maybe)	29: Survivor	30: freebie	Not September	Not September

This is more than likely the last post on an episode that you will see before new episodes start. I do not know yet just how many more I might be able to write in the future or not. But at least I won’t have to worry about doing too many more random posts for a while after this coming month. I’ll explain more about what’s going on with the new blog and include a link for it when I have it started. It is a thing to note since it could affect this blog. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor: Borneo- A Second Look Back

While I already did a look back on the first Survivor season, I am going to do another, generic one now that Rudy’s death has happened. I won’t know how long it will take for me to get to a point where I am able to see the special leading into this. Plus, I will wait until the show can be added to a new spot on the list instead of starting a new list with the next set of choices or making it the first replacement for what Survivor shows are on the list. Well, that’s the plan for now, at least. After I blog about the whole season again, I will do posts regarding Rudy’s appearance on the show. Who knows how long a wait this might be until I start posting these blog posts? This will be written long in advance.

The special was put on my Sunday movies of shows to watch. While I would put the blog posts of Survivor: Gabon on Sunday, those posts are on hiatus as I watch Survivor: Island of the Idols. There won’t be an issue unless the movie is not rolled before 2019 ends. I will see what all will happen with this blog and second season watching here and keep you updated on what will or could change. But what wound up happening is that all the lists were combined into just one at the time so I could and had the potential to see it on Saturday, which I did.

There’s not much else to say as on leap day in 2020, I rolled the special and will watch it again. I don’t know how far in advance this post will be written and can only hope that other Survivor seasons will be talked about in my blog as I have a lot of them to potentially write about. In the meantime, let’s start with the beginning of the special.

Starting the special, we begin in a tiny Malaysian fishing village before the contestants gather for their trip to the island for an adventure that is once in a lifetime. Once in a while, you may find yourself thinking, “Oh my God, what have I done?” The contestants talk to each other on the boat including B. B. and Rudy explaining the age gap.

 

Jeff does the introduction for the viewers at home as the chaos starts when the game starts. I do not know all of how the introduction worked. Maybe the cameras were off when they were officially given their buffs and Jeff explained what would happen next. Survivor started in a quick moment. Richard mentions how he plans to win the game and every challenge in the game. He is cocky and in some ways overconfident. But he did win the game in the end. He does want there to be respect in the game and lays over some ground rules for how he thinks the game should go.

 

One by one, we see the contestants of this season in order of boot. Sonja goes first. She is treated by Dr. Sean after going a bit too hard when she started out in the game. She blames herself for her tribe’s loss in the first challenge. She accepts her loss with grace and still supports her tribe as she leaves it.

 

B. B. is next. He talks about some of his accomplishments in his audition video.  He annoys others by washing his clothes in the canteen that they use to cook food in, ruining the potential rice. He doesn’t want to vote on what his tribe does. Some on his tribe feel that he wants to go so they vote him out as a result, giving him what he wants as a result. He is even happy to be voted out and feels that he might have been voted out due to his older age.

 

Being shown clips of an immunity challenge involving gross food eating, Stacey is able to win the final point for her tribe. When the tribe is talking about who should be voted out before the tribal council, she doesn’t trust Sue after Sue doesn’t say who she would vote out. She irritates people and does her exit confessional during the day, something that rarely happens, but does happen again.

 

At the Pagong tribe, the contestants eat rats in order to survive. Ramona admits that they are really good to eat. She only seemed to know about black people in some places where she grew up. She has some negative reactions to some food in the game and has emotional moments with Jenna, having related to her some, but not even to avoid getting voted out by her. Ramona was too sick in the game and she couldn’t redeem herself according to the others.

 

Richard gets a knife and starts wearing it right away. He sees a weird thing that some of them wonder if they should eat or not. After washing it in the ocean, he says that he will try it, but there is no footage that proves whether he eats it or not.

 

Dirk is shown hunting for firewood in his audition video and he points a gun at it telling it to get down on the ground. He brings a bible as his personal item, but Rudy says that despite being religious himself, he would only bring a bible to use as toilet paper. While not explained well in the special, he is voted out and talks about God in his exit confessional, having partying to do. Maybe he will do that in the lesser known original version of baby shark.

 

Joel comes off as a chauvinist to people. Considering what came off in Stacey’s tape, I wonder why they weren’t put on the same tribe to butt heads like the would be homophobe Rudy with the gay Richard. While he may not come off as bad to himself, others think that he condescending towards women and even Greg votes him out. He was an asshole on just one comment thread of mine on facebook and that is how he often came off as the show.

 

After the merge, Richard talks about the sham marriage that he was paid into doing. He also thinks that Greg might have experimented with men at some point since he wasn’t saying anything at the time. Rudy thinks that he would be court-martialed just for listening to this in the army.

 

Gretchen talks about how she feels that she has survived in a lot of ways. She shared her toothbrush with others on the tribe. She wants to help her tribe survive better in the game. Ultimately, while not talked about that much in this special, she was the victim of a voting alliance.

 

Greg talks a lot in his audition video while ultimately being the first lovable goof of Survivor. He talks into a phone that is known as the nature phone. Some feel that he thinks this coconut is a phone, but I am pretty sure that he was only pretending that it was a phone and knew full well that it wasn’t actually won. He gets upset that someone counted the chicken before it hatched since some animal got the chickens that were meant for the tribes. After getting voted out, he fake cries, much to the amusement of others like Jeff and the contestants in the game.

 

Sean talks about an idea for a calendar that I don’t think ever was created, but possibly was? The idea was for something called fat naked fag doing various things. Richard celebrates his birthday by being naked, but doesn’t stay that way the whole time since people don’t like it and want him to stop.

 

Jenna thinks that she is likable and hopes that others will feel that way about her. The reward from home that people come up with made people really hope that Jenna could see the reward in the end. She didn’t get the tape back in time so while all the other contestants got to see stuff from their loved ones, she didn’t and got emotional because of it. It was a sad moment indeed.

 

Sue trusts Kelly at first and thinks that they are sisters in the end. Sue is emotional having lost her best friend a long time ago and thinking that she finally found a replacement. Sadly, things were not meant to last in the end.

 

Gervase talks about his tough and no nonsense approach to the game in the end. He seems lazy in the end and is okay with being that way. He even makes a bit of controversy by saying that women are the stupidest things next to cows. He makes it further than some thought that he would and probably could have in the future or should have back then in the present.

 

Jeff takes the contestants to a special event on day 32 that we never see in the final edit of the game as it was a reward activity. They are to look at themselves in a mirror and guess how much weight they have lost. The person who comes closest wins a special food treat. There are only six people in the game when this happens. But there was an official reward in that episode too. So I don’t quite get when this was part of the show or know why it was edited out like the first ever reward challenge. Colleen wins this activity being off by only one pound. She gets chocolate for it which she shares with everyone else in the game at the time.

 

It isn’t known what happened to Colleen. She isn’t a missing person, but some of us want to know her current whereabouts. Kelley Wentworth promised to do that, but as far as I know, she never actually did find this person. She (Colleen) was in a movie called The Animal at one point.

 

She is known for what seemed like hook ups with Greg at night. Greg was asked earlier if they had sex. He is convinced that they would know more than he did about it. Colleen claims that their relationship was all about the sex. But this has not been seen as the case yet. Bugs also live in her sores, something she is bothered by needless to say. The edit of this special wasn’t clear to me at first as to why she was voted out. I understand it now as the fact that Kelly had immunity and was the intended target.

 

Sean is known for a fishing pole known as super pole. It looks cool but does nothing. He brought a razor to the island as his luxury or personal item. He shaves throughout the game, but might not be known as the only male contestant to lack facial hair throughout the game as a lot of them don’t seem to have much of anything related to it. Sean was voted out and as part of a folklore bit from earlier in the show that wasn’t seen on the special, his torch was already out.

 

Kelly and Sue fight due to their deteriorating relationship. Kelly didn’t want to make Pagong look like they were being targeted one by one. But Sue felt that she was trying to make herself look good in front of the Pagong members. Kelly’s strategy almost worked as only Pagong members voted for her to win the game. Sue tries to get rid of Kelly since Kelly turned on them and wants them to know that Kelly had voted for Gretchen. She does a poem and various other bits in her audition video. Perhaps part of it was a soliloquy. But I’m not entirely sure what that is right now.

 

There were a lot of recurring things that Sue did and she played the role of the dumb redneck. Some are annoyed by her accent and she was looking for tapioca a lot. She thought that she could do better than the city slickers in the game. Still, she was voted out in the end.

 

Rudy talks about in an interview with the producers before the game started how he would vote against someone just because they are gay. He still made it on the show, admitting that he changed his mind with people, Richard, the gay man, being one of them. Richard was unsure of revealing that he was gay to Richard. But Rudy admits that Richard is one of the nicest people that he ever met and that they “got to be pretty good friends, but not in a homosexual way, that’s for sure.”

 

He doesn’t want to hang with these people after the game is done. He wants to do a business deal with people and if they aren’t queer, “there might be something else ‘wrong’ with them, like they could be black of something.” Hopefully he knows that being black isn’t wrong in any way. They are just like white people outside of their skin color.

 

Rudy takes his hand off in the final immunity challenge and Kelly gets the final vote out decision as a result. He is voted out and Kelly has spoken instead of the usual tribe has spoken since only she had voted. Rudy says that if others want to play the game, they should be in an alliance.

 

Kelly wants to relax and regrets being part of the alliance that she was in. Richard was in the army for five years. I don’t know when he came out as he couldn’t be openly gay in the army at the time. He does not hide it anymore. He wants people to get to know him before he reveals that part about him as they would like him better that way feeling more relaxed that way. I honestly thought at one point that it was a joke that gays couldn’t serve in the army and not that it was a real policy. (I had only heard this on Family Guy and not many other places.)

 

Greg asks his famous pick a number question at the final tribal council. Sue lays into Richard some at the final tribal council. She feels that Kelly fails all the time. But Kelly won a lot of immunity challenges or she wouldn’t have made it as far as she did. Sue hopes that her vote costs Kelly the game and it was, in fact, the one vote that cost Kelly the game. Sue hopes that the snake will eat the rat in the end as Kelly was a rat and Richard was a snack. I do wonder if Sue’s speech partially backfired as it might have gotten others to vote for Kelly instead.

 

The jury members give their speeches about why they feel that some people had to win over others. Greg says that the number was nine, even though Richard guessed seven and Kelly guessed three. He says that everyone guesses Kelly. In an exclusive to this special, Kelly gives an exit confessional, the only runner-up in Survivor history to do this in the season that she was a runner-up in. Kelly is upset over the speech that Sue gave in the end. Richard also talks about his win in the end.

 

Jeff gives a special look at the next season of Survivor after this one as he talks about Australia and the largely uncharted land it has. The tribal council is on top of a beautiful waterfall. The first one was great and he can’t wait to do it again. We also see clips of the wrap party of the season in the credits. I wonder if all of the contestants were reunited at this point.

 

That’s it for this special and this blog post. There’s not much else to say. You won’t know just how much longer it will be until this post is published because it will be a while for me until it is, but know that I will have started watching the season in the future or at least have it on the list again. I should hopefully see you soon with the next post of this season on the very first episode. I hope you don’t have to wait too long in order to see it. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

The Super Fan Stereotype

With another season of Survivor coming soon after quite a while off the air, it makes you wonder just how many, if any, super fans of the show we will see. I can’t remember offhand which season would have been the first that had this, but you see it a whole lot on the show nowadays.

 

What is a super fan? It is quite simple, really. Someone who loves the show a lot becomes a player and most of what they seem to be about on the show, at least starting out, is a fan who now gets to play Survivor and they are very knowledgeable about the past of the show.

 

Of course, knowing what has happened on the show in the past doesn’t mean that you know what will be happening in the game as it is going on. People are often going to target these people as if you know a lot about how Survivor works, then you are likely going to be a threat.

 

I’ll admit that these are at least always better than the contestants who we get from time to time that have not even seen Survivor and should have no business being on the show. I wouldn’t know just how often it appears as this is not surprisingly promoted on the show, but can appear at times on info that the show releases in the end.

 

Super fans on the show can go far or not make it as far as they would like. As with every type of player that we find on the show, it can vary just how much affect they will have on the season and how far they go. But they tend to only appear one at a time. You won’t see multiple super fans on one season at least as far as I remember.

 

There isn’t much else to say. I know that I won’t be posting an update of this blog next Wednesday as I have to yield it to another blog of mine. I tend to skip Wednesdays when I do a post of this blog on a day of the week that is not a Wednesday since I could conceivably do that next day of the week again the next week, but don’t as of yet. Anyways, I will be back as the schedule dictates and I’ll explain why I am jumping the gun with some of the other old season’s posts in the future before this month ends. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

The (Lack of) Naming Merged Tribes

There isn’t much time for me to write this post so I’m not going to do much of a post. That’s just right for not much of a donkey, I mean, human. It seems like some classic parts of Survivor keep getting either cut from the show or become less important as the show goes on. For instance, I do not remember the names of any of the merged tribes of recent seasons.

I addressed in a previous post how it seems like tribes don’t mean much of anything anymore. They used to mean everything throughout the whole game where the members of the merged tribe would still focus on who they were before the merge. While I have not yet been able to catch up on my notes about Survivor which would better paint a light on more of this on recent seasons (I want to catch up to at least Millennials versus Gen X if not until Winners at War), it does not seem like an issue anymore. This could be a good thing, but it seems like we don’t even know what tribes are what. 

Basically nowadays, we wouldn’t know the names of the merged tribes most of the newer seasons and you have to wonder why they just don’t call them all merged tribe since we never get much about why a tribe has the name it does after the merge anymore and it doesn’t seem to matter. I think that there should be more on the name of merged tribes today or just don’t have one at all. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Should Survivor Require Coronavirus Vaccines?

With a lot of Survivor filmed for future seasons and ready to air at least one season in the future, we have to wonder about the future beyond it before making sure what we love and enjoy comes back. But there is an issue with more seasons. Since there is a vaccine against the coronavirus, you would have to wonder if they should require that new contestants get it in order to play the game.

 

This post won’t be talking too much about why you should get the vaccine against coronavirus or the needless politics of this as I have three other blogs where I can and do discuss politics instead. Everyone should get the vaccine against the coronavirus. My question is if any Survivor contestant or, indeed, anyone else who works for Survivor should be required to be vaccinated.

 

I don’t know much about how Big Brother does casting related to the pandemic. But I do know that they had to replace one of the contestants planned for the currently airing season before it started since they had a positive test. This would make it likely that they weren’t vaccinated against it, although there is still about a 5% chance of getting it with the vaccine.

 

I bring this up because it is likely that two different CBS reality shows would likely have the same sort of casting process going on, even now with a pandemic still ongoing. That would mean that if someone is not required to get it on Big Brother (although this is still unconfirmed by me and just speculative on my part), then it would seem unlikely that Survivor would be much different. But this might not be the case in the end as Survivor isn’t filmed in this country like Big Brother is.

 

I also wouldn’t know if things were different from the start of the 41^st season or first post pandemic one since the vaccine wasn’t widely available then. Seasons that come after it might be different, even if they have already been filmed now or will end up being filmed in the future.

 

But there is another reason that vaccines are a good idea. No contestant would want to be medically evacuated from the game and that might have to happen if they get coronavirus. Of course, it might be even more complicated than that as I speculated in a previous blog post. If you get medically evacuated from Survivor, you can’t win the game. That alone should be reason why it could be required. But the main question is whether or not they can force it. I can only hope that there is a good middle ground with all of the options available since they don’t want to violate contestants’ rights or the rights or those who make the show either and you can’t force them to get vaccinated.

 

I would say that it be highly recommended that people get the vaccine if they want to do Survivor in the future without outright forcing it as that would probably be illegal. I would think that this would mean that the producers of the show are looking out for what’s best for the contestants while also doing what is best legally and in other ways too. For this, this is Adam Decker, signing off.