Survivor 41 Premiere

Since Survivor has now finally returned with new episodes as of this post, I still feel like doing some of what I’ve done with other posts from old seasons that I’ve done that you would have seen during this long off season of over a year, provided that you have been keeping up with this blog all this time. I do not post many of my blog posts on facebook anymore. But there was something that I did where I went through all of the recurring challenges of the show and posted as to whether or not they would work while social distancing. I have decided that I should do all of the onetime challenges in each post starting with the very first season and then working my way to the present. Remember that all the information comes from Survivor fandom. Let’s start with the first challenge that only appeared once.

Treasure chest (reward challenge from Quest for Food): In this challenge, each tribe has to swim out to the chest and bring it back to their mat. If they do this first, they win the challenge. Their reward is the items in the chest. I’m not sure that a tribal version of this could be done while social distancing, but a possible individual one could be.

Buried treasure (immunity challenge from Too Little, Too Late?): In this challenge, the tribes have to do a relay race to get the map for the buried treasure and then the treasure itself by doing all of the following things: swimming, floating bridge challenge, rowing, jungle running, and then digging for the treasure itself. It is possible that it could be done while social distancing.

Abandoned barracks (reward challenge from Udder Revenge): In this challenge, each tribe has to get one of three items one at a time from a location without getting a duplicate item or they would lose the challenge to the other tribe. Obviously, this challenge could be done while social distancing. I doubt that we would see it again as I’m not really sure that it worked as a challenge. But it could be redone as they have evolved plenty of other challenges.

Survivor archery (reward challenge from Thy Name is Duplicity): In this challenge, contestants play a game of archery where they have to hit closest to the target to win. This challenge could be done while social distancing. It would have to be elaborated on more if it is to appear again.

Bamboozled (reward challenge from Crack in the Alliance): In this challenge, contestants have to run across a bamboo balance beam before the other contestants to win before others do. This challenge could be done while social distancing. It is unknown how or if it could work. It seems a bit too simple in a way compared to challenges of today.

Weight loss guess (unaired, unofficial reward challenge with no official name, only available on the Greatest and Most Outrageous Moments special said to take place during the time frame of the episode of Long Hard Days and the only time a second reward challenge has happened, as far as I know): In this challenge, contestants have to look at themselves in a mirror and guess how much weight that they had lost with the closest guess winning the challenge. This could be done while social distancing, but I am unsure if they’d do something like this again.

Walk the Plank (immunity challenge from Long Hard Days): In this challenge, contestants would have to stand next to each other on a set of planks until some were removed and only one was left. Since this challenge requires people to be close to each other, it could not be done while social distancing.

SPOILER. While I have worked a lot on this post before knowing the theme or even name of it just yet, I have heard through reading if you see what I’m saying that this might be a potential shortened season that is less than 39 days for the first time in history. I don’t know if this is true or not, although we might know by the time that you are reading this. This would be due to filming limitations of the sort. Now I am hoping that they can film more than just seasons 41 and 42 during 2021. They could film more just to ensure that more are ready for the future. They might have to if they have to shorten the airing of the season to ensure that there is more Survivor to air. But we’ll see what happens. I did hear that they might have filmed season 43 at one point by the time you are seeing this post. END SPOILER.

As you would have noticed from a previous post if you pay attention to the schedules of blogs that I do, you would have noticed that Sunday posts of this blog will be affected since I will be yielding it to the new CSI: Vegas blog that I’m doing. There are other times that Sundays could be affected over the course of the coming season so expect less of the Blood versus Water posts in the future. Note that I will be yielding Wednesdays to my CSI: Vegas blog during Advent and Lent as long as this show is airing during that time so Sundays could potentially appear then unless I have a late update on a current episode of this show.

I do have to express an annoyance of no theme name for this or any other future season, it seems. They are just going to number them for the rest of this show’s airing. That means that they can’t air them out of order again, which they’ve only done once thus far anyways.

Before I get to the first new Survivor episode in question, let’s get to some updates about this blog. I said the only real update about other blogs of mine and how it affects this one for now. You see, in the event that I am not able to blog about this new season on the day that it airs before the time frame that Advent starts, then you won’t see whatever past season posts are scheduled on the time that you do see it. This means that if you see a post on the 41’s season on a Friday, China’s posts will be delayed until the end of this season, if there are any of them written at all.

If this blog is delayed to a Sunday, you won’t see any posts on either Blood versus Water or China until this season ends. If this blog is delayed to a Tuesday, then you won’t see any posts on China, Blood versus Water, or Borneo until this season is being done being written about. Plus, if posts of past seasons are delayed and ready for the future, they would return in staggered posts over the months with one set to return in one month and then the next and the next beyond that.

Of course, there are a lot of wildcards going into the whole process. There is almost a certainty now that I will be doing a third list of shows to watch with since I might rig things to go my way (as much as things can) so you will even be assured of a potentially quicker time for me to blog about Borneo again. There are some weird things will all of the lists as a whole. I also now have All-Stars to blog about, but have no idea when or even which list or day of the week you might start seeing that at. You won’t see that for sure until I’m done with one of the three past seasons of the shows that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Two of those, I haven’t even started watching again as I still have what I count as two Gabon episodes to watch that I’m not (yet) blogging about before I get to Blood versus Water. All I know is that things are pretty crazy with this blog for now. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Jeff talks to us and talks some about a new advantage in the game. There are penalties for losing. You mean, beyond tribal council? The contestants are coming out now. Evvie is talking first for her tribe. Danny talks for his tribe and Tiffany for hers. JD is the first player to be younger than the show itself. I missed someone in the confessional count, I think. A lot of people talk at once. The three tribes gather. I think that the name of this season is Let it Go. Perhaps that’s why it was a number. They can’t hold it back anymore.

Jeff talks to two of the people there with Naseer being the third people he learned English by watching Survivor. Why not watch a show with subtitles? I’m pretty sure this show doesn’t have it. I actually heard that you can teach kids to read by having shows and movies on with subtitles. Jeff says that this is a more difficult to win this season than others. They have little supplies. But didn’t they do that back in the fourth season, Marquesas? Jeff then mentions that only the first tribe to win the reward gets the meager supplies and the rest of the tribe has to start from scratch with nothing.

The yellow tribe has a setback in the challenge by losing its paddle. The blue tribe has a great lead in the challenge. But the green tribe is able to surpass them. They wind up winning the challenge. The blue tribe never unclipped in the back which is why they were dragging on.

The green tribe arrives at camp with their reward. They have to go more inward to find it. Brad wants to get the most out of Survivor. JD was preparing to be on Survivor. Well, they were cast for quite a long time before they went out there. And that’s provided that they weren’t a white person and recast in favor of the new casting rule. The yellow tribe is given a task. The choice is sweat or stealth. They decided not to count the triangles as just the sweat option was picked. The blue tribe makes the same choice. They think that their brains aren’t working right.

In the second segment of the show, we get the complicated back stories of various people. On the blue tribe, it is noticed that Deshawn and Danny are looking for an idol instead of staying with the task at hand. This leaves the other four to form an alliance right off the back.

In the third segment of the show, Deshawn learns that people are targeting him and Danny. Both of those tribes complete the task in time. Tiffany is a target on her tribe for not helping with the boat, even though she couldn’t have via the challenge rules. She calls herself a previvor, one of the first, since she got a double mastectomy before getting or potentially getting cancer.

In the fourth segment of the show, Danny goes on his tribe on a boat by himself to make a decision of some sort. Xander is picked for his tribe. JD gets to represent his tribe when they decide to draw rocks. He is unsure of being picked since he thinks the others would get rid of him. They then follow a trail to a summit, learning about each other. Danny says that he played football in college, but lies about being in the NFL, something others might have suspected.

They have to separate, thinking that it could be the choice between an advantage for themselves or their tribe. Everyone is given the choice between protecting your vote or risking your vote. If they all risk their vote, they all lose it. If just one or two risks it, they get an extra vote. Danny protects his vote. We don’t see what the others do yet.

In the fifth segment of the show, Danny returns and is honest about what happened. JD said that he risked his vote to the other tribe. But he says that he left out key details. JD says that he protected his vote, which seems to be a lie.

In the sixth segment of the show, we get to the challenge where Jeff decides to retire the phrase, “Come on in guys,” and replace it with just “Come on in.” I missed which player did this. We also get to a shot in the dark die where people get a shot at safety at tribal council. Only one tribe wins immunity with the other two tribes going to tribal council to each vote a person out. They also have to forfeit what they have until they win another challenge. The blue tribe wins the challenge. This was despite a setback at one point that put them last at one point.

In the seventh segment of the show, Abraham rallies the yellow tribe to get rid of Tiffany. Evvie does not want to get rid of all the women on the tribe. Evvie wants to get rid of Abraham instead. Tiffany thinks that she will be fine, but still looks for an idol. She doesn’t see a clue that Jeff hid earlier. I missed some of what it was.

Meanwhile, Sara on the green tribe is upset that she lost at the puzzle which is why she didn’t want to volunteer for them. But Ricard wants to get rid of JD instead. Sara doesn’t think that she is safe and wants to use her shot in the dark. She also thinks that it is strange that people want to vote her out just because she messed up at the challenge, which she thinks is too old school. Shan thinks that she holds all of the cards since people want her on her side.

In the eighth segment of the show, we get to the first tribal council, the one of the yellow tribe. Jeff asks Abraham what the criteria is for voting someone out. He said nothing while saying a lot. He is coming to bring it on. Tiffany thinks that Abraham is trying to play too hard. They talk about the shot in the dark twist. They talk about the David tribe from not too long ago. Many people spoke up. We’ll see who all votes as not voting is now always an option at least once. Xander notices that he did get an extra vote. Is using the shot in the dark worth being wrong 5 out of 6 times? Nobody plays an idol or advantage. It turns out that Abraham is voted out first. They go back and the next tribe comes in.

In the ninth segment of the show, the other tribe talks about how well they feel they are together. They do not trust that JD didn’t get some sort of advantage. But little do the others know, this was the first time where they couldn’t potentially bring back something. Sara is skeptical herself. While JD is busy talking, the other tribe members do a bit of a huddle that is noticed by some people. The name Brad is being brought up, but JD doesn’t want to do this. They want to work with JD. At one point, they all put their die in their pocket. But some aren’t sure they want to do it. JD does notice that he has an extra vote out there that others might not know about. No votes are known. Sara is voted out. I’m not sure why Ricard got votes or why Brad did either since JD thought that was a bad idea.

On the next Survivor, Brad is out looking for an idol or something, but people know that he is doing this and nothing else is really known or clear from what else I could gather in the promo. I feel like I might need to do a post on vague promos in my TV blog. This is far from the only show to do that. At least it wasn’t as bad as the final season of Madam Secretary which never even aired promos of the final season episodes that it should have.

Total confessional count: Abraham- 2, Heather- 0, Erika- 2, Genie- 1, Ricard- 5, Xander- 3, Evvie- 3, Danny- 6, Naseer- 3, Deshawn- 2, Brad- 1, JD- 7, Tiffany- 3, Sydney- 1, Shan- 3, Voce- 3, Liana- 3, Sara- 4.

JD is doing the best in terms of confessionals, although I’m pretty sure that I missed some of them. I mean, I had to replace two of the names since I thought that they would be known by their first instead of their last. I had to look them up. They would have been too similar to other people’s first names. Now Heather has the lowest count with none at all thus far, the only one without any. Sara had four, with Danny and Ricard both being higher. Many tie for third. Abraham had only two, which was a tie with Erika and Deshawn. The only people with just one are Brad, Sydney, and Genie.

Since I have these main blogs up again for the first time in a while, I’m going to include the planned blog schedule in this season’s posts. I even plan to get ahead of the game in November and December. Let’s get to the next month’s planned blog posts:

Planned October blog posts 

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

I hope that things will be easy to get back into the routine of doing posts on new episodes again. I just hope that I don’t miss too much. When you are watching it on DVD, it is easy to get used to being able to watch things that you missed. So here’s hoping that things will go back to normal. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.