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.

Survivor: China episode 5: Love is in the Air

And rats are everywhere… Wait. There are no rats this time? It seems odd that this episode uses half of a title from a Palau episode that had obviously previously aired at some point earlier. But I do believe that one episode title was used verbatim twice now in two different seasons. I’m not good with episode names the way some other fans may or may not be.

Something that I was wondering about was what if Survivor returns, but it is not on Wednesday? What would happen with this blog? Well, part of the issue with blogs is that this one became the primary one for me despite not being my first blog. I don’t currently have any other blogs that could be the primary one as others are stuck in the cast update phrase for possibly forever and I still like using the TV blog one to signify at times when I rolled an episode of this show to later update this blog.

Only if The Good Fight were to return to TV could that blog take over as primary with the day of the week that it airs being when I update posts of that blog. Thus, there could be issues with this no longer having the updates of it on Wednesdays due to whatever new time the show would be airing at conflicting with it and other blogs of mine potentially in the way of updates. We’ll see what happens, but I doubt that there would be many issues with it in the end as I’ll figure something out as always.

Now let’s get to the challenges that start with g. This might be the last in the sort of series that I am doing with this and I will have to skip to a different theme unless I finish doing my Gabon posts first. I had no idea that I would be gone from it for so long and maybe the gap will last even longer. Plus, I will not be able to watch many if any in December since I typically give up watching the regular shows then in favor of Christmas programming. And I might get myself an old Survivor season before then, but we’ll see if that happens or not.

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

This challenge is also known as twisted, crystal method, fun climb, and Jacob’s ladder. In it, contestants have to find ladder rung pieces, build them, and climb them first before solving a puzzle at the end. This challenge could be done while social distancing.

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

This is also known as seven bridges road. In it, contestants have to use planks to form a bridge and then solve a puzzle with those planks. This challenge could maybe be done while social distancing if they do it right. Can they? I guess that we’ll see.

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

In this challenge, contestants must break gates and solve a maze with and in the pole they are using. It appeared earlier this season in China. This challenge could not be done while social distancing as it relies on people being too close together.

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

In this challenge, contestants must hang onto a pole without touching the ground. This challenge could be done while social distancing. It is one of the most iconic challenges of Survivor so it probably will keep appearing over and over again. Also, a lot of these challenges that work with social distancing have only been used thus far as individual challenges so far, but there could be a tribe based version of it that they want to do it like that.

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

This challenge is also known as sandbagging, a quick affair, full tilt affair, and 5 on 5. In it, contestants must race to get barrels to land sandbags on or simply just have sandbags land on barrels. There have been a lot of variants of this challenge and it has appeared as part of a challenge known as second chance. Since that challenge is a combination of all sorts of other challenges, I will wait to post it last of all of the recurring challenges. As for this challenge, I do believe that some variants of it could be done while social distancing.

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

In this challenge, contestants must maneuver a member of their team to get certain flags when they are in a cradle devise. I think that this probably can’t be done while social distancing. I don’t even remember this challenge at all, although I haven’t yet seen every episode of this show.

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

This challenge is also known as pig pen. In it, contestants must gather as many of whatever animals are in a pen. Even if they did just one contestant at a time, I don’t think that this can be done while social distancing as it just wouldn’t work in my mind.

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

This challenge is also known as Franklins tower and born to rung. In it, contestants must race through a course to a tower, release the steps to get up a tower, and then solve the puzzle or task at the top of the tower. I think that this could possibly be done while social distancing. It is interesting that two of the names for it have been used before as song names so maybe I will include those songs in future posts. One of them might be close to the name of a song, but not the actual name itself.

Shows I watch on DVD update: mystery choice #6 was removed from the list leaving just mystery choice #5 on the list and another switch between Power Rangers season 3 and Power Rangers season 1. After that change happened, Matlock was moved up to the main list which causes mystery choice #7 to switch with mystery choice #5, Power Rangers season 3 switches with Power Rangers season 1, NCIS: Los Angeles switches with NCIS, and Invader Zim season 2 is put on this list as well.

For those that are confused, know that more changes with mystery choices will be explained in The Good Wife blog over time. I then finished with mystery choice #7 and that is replaced by mystery choice #8 which causes Power Rangers season 3 to switch with season 1 and NCIS: Los Angeles being switched with NCIS again. That is a lot of switching around. But if things get removed from the main list, there will be a lot less of the switching around that has happened.

Since it is known now that Survivor won’t be on for quite a while, I might as well talk about Survivor’s delay in this blog. There are two links into it as they are posed to, if possible, film it next year when they were supposed to film it this year. I did learn that preproduction had already started in Fiji before any of the shutdowns happen which is why they are still demanding that it take place in Fiji. But I do have to wonder why they couldn’t do something else domestically. I have the feeling that the number one issue with maybe doing Survivor here would be fans trying to get on the set.

https://www.tvguide.com/news/when-is-survivor-returning-for-season-41/

https://tvline.com/2020/09/12/survivor-filming-postponed-season-41-spring-2021/

There was once a time that I told you about a missionary in this blog as I mentioned a lot of them at one point. But one of them named Duane Meissner has left the mission field and has been replaced by two different people as he had two different jobs while he was in Belize. I might get into a third person who is the head of all things that is worth mentioning.

https://www.lcms.org/wildauer

Having written four blog posts on this season before I have done more or the rest of the episodes of Gabon, you might have noticed me mentioning all the movies that I watch on it provided that they are on one of my current four lists of things to watch. Now I try to link old posts of other blogs into this blog (or whatever blog might have me mentioning the movies I watch) and post them here if they link in some way to a certain movie that I talk about. One of these does (as I have mentioned before) so I might as well get into that. Hopefully, this will explain as to why the movie lists are moving from Gabon posts to this season’s posts.

Where do things stand in terms of movies right now? The Sunday list has the following choices: Arrival, Ghost Town, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Muppet from Space, Raising Arizona, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The Wednesday list has the following choices: Bean: the Movie, Free Willy, grade school graduation, Lilo and Stitch, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones with commentary, and Toy Story. The Friday list has the following choices: Absolute Power, Liar Liar, Monsters Inc, North by Northwest, Space Jam, and The Wrong Man. The Saturday list has the following choices: Celtic Woman: Believe, Despicable Me 2, Enchanted, Fireproof, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Oliver and Company.

On Sunday, I watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Now it has a link with The Good Wife blog of mine so I will be sharing posts from my Good Wife blog again in this season’s posts. Here is the last one that I had shared before when I stopped doing this in Gabon’s posts.

http://adamdeckergoodwifetvshow.blogspot.com/2016/02/october-twenty-fifth-2015s-episode.html

After I watched that Kingsman movie, I replaced it with The Land before Time. On Wednesday, I saw the movie Toy Story. I replaced that with Toy Story 2. On Friday, I watched North by Northwest. I replaced that with Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. On Saturday, I watched Celtic: Woman: Believe. I replaced that with Celtic Woman: Destiny.

On Sunday, I watched nothing from the main list with lunch as I had other plans for lunch. Later that same day, I used a scab list to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers from Saturday’s list. I then replaced it with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. On Tuesday, I watched Bean: The Movie from Wednesday’s list and replaced it with Avatar.

Speaking of Wednesday, I later watched Star Wars: Attack of the Clones with commentary. I replaced that with Star Wars: A New Hope with commentary. On Friday, I watched Absolute Power. I replaced that with Bend it Like Beckham. On Saturday, I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I replaced that with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. On Sunday, I watched Raising Arizona. I replaced that with Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue VHS tape.

On Wednesday, I watched Avatar. I replaced that with Baby Boom. On Friday, I watched Bend it Like Beckham. I replaced that with The Best Years of Our Lives. On Saturday and Sunday, I watched no other movies so I could spend time with family instead.

On Wednesday, I watched Star Wars: A New Hope with commentary. I replaced that with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back with commentary. On Friday, I watched Liar Liar. I replaced that with Front of the Class. On Saturday, I watched Fireproof. I replaced that with The Great Race. On Sunday, I watched no movie this time around.

On Wednesday, I watched Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back with commentary. I replaced that with Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi with commentary. On Friday, I watched Front of the Class. I replaced that with a crossover tape that I have. On Saturday, I watched Celtic Woman: Destiny. That has the potential to be an important thing in this and any other blog post when it comes up. But it won’t be this time around. I replaced that with American Dreamz, removing Celtic Woman from my list of things to watch, which means it will automatically be added to the next set of things to watch next year. On Sunday, I watched Muppets from Space. I replaced that with Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

On Wednesday, I watched Star Wars: Return of the Jedi with commentary. I replaced that with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. On Friday, I watched nothing, feeling that I had no time to do that. On that next Saturday, I also had no time to watch anything. On Sunday, I watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I replaced that with a play recording that I have of myself in The Wizard of Oz, something that I call The Wizard of Oz as it is the same story essentially in many places. I will get to list all of the ways that it is different in the post that I watch it in.

On Wednesday, I watched no movies for the first time in I’m not even sure just how long. I didn’t think that I’d have enough time for it and I was originally not even going to be home this past week anyways. I watched nothing the next Friday or Saturday so I could spend time with family instead. The next day, I considered it the start of Christmas season so I probably won’t see any more non-Christmas movies for a while, but I could still before this year is over. Now here’s the rest of this year’s change on what I watch on DVD which was originally planned for the next post, like a lot of these are. I’ll let you know when I get to the movie updates again.

TV shows I watch on DVD update: Invader Zim season 2 is almost done being watched so I take it off of the list and more things are shuffled around. Parks and Recreation takes over for Power Rangers season 1, volume 1, with it having been frozen on the list again. Mystery choice #5 takes its place back on the list again having replaced (for now) mystery choice #8. NCIS: Los Angeles once again replaces NCIS. Downton Abbey is now put on the list. At this point, I could create a third list which would include the choice of Survivor: Borneo on it, but will have to wait until nothing is frozen from this list for it to happen in the end. Or maybe I won’t wait for that potential thing to happen. Conversely, if Survivor: Borneo is the next thing to be added to this second list, I would have to freeze it and just stick with the main list in the end.

It wasn’t long until the next change happened. Since Power Rangers season 1, volume 2 was moved up to the main list, this caused a lot of changes. Nothing new was put on the second list as a result. Mystery choice #9 was put on the list in place of mystery choice #5. NCIS replaces NCIS: Los Angeles. Power Rangers season 3 replaces Parks and Recreation. That puts the list back in a normal place for now, but there are still issues as long as I have to switch back and forth some between things. Note that since a p choice is now on the main list, I won’t be able to move something else with that letter onto the main list unless or until it is taken off of that list first.

The next change in the list has me reaching a stopping point in mystery choice #9 so it was removed from the list with mystery choice #8 taking its place back on the list instead. This also means that NCIS: Los Angeles is back on the list in place of NCIS while Parks and Recreation is also back on instead of Power Rangers season 3. Again, nothing new is added to this list. What is interesting now is that the three oldest things on this second list are what are frozen and unable to be watched right now. If there were the ability to move all three things to the oldest list, that would be ideal, but I know that one of them currently can’t be moved that way yet.

What can I say about all of the Advent and Christmas stuff? Well, I do honestly have the potential to roll a show in December from any list of shows that I have on DVD to watch. But I always make sure that I get done with all of the Christmas specials and any and all of the Christmas episodes that I tend to watch around this time of the year. The only exception at times is shows on tape, but I don’t have to worry about being caught up on that for quite a while (hopefully).

I do feel like mentioning the Wednesday shows that I watched in December of 2020. The CW showed Coroner, but it ended for the season. It will be back later. ABC was airing The Goldbergs, but then it was over for a while. I was watching For Life at the time as well. I could be watching NBC’s Chicago Med like I used to before it competed with Survivor, but I can’t see most NBC shows since they don’t come in. I do watch the CBS show of S.W.A.T. I might get back into SEAL Team, but am not sure that I care about it anymore.  I do watch the FOX show of The Masked Singer. I miss a lot of shows due to church. They even did earlier services at the time to ensure more people could come. I don’t yet know if I’ll wind up going to one of them, but don’t miss much right now anyways.

Speaking some more about Christmas related things, there is something that I do every year that is almost never that important. I do an annual Christmas boycott where the company that airs the first Christmas commercial of the year isn’t a place that I go to again until after the year ends. I don’t know yet what I’d do in the event that it is ever Amazon that does this. They did their prime day all the way back in October. But it was Lowes that aired the first Christmas commercial of the year. I don’t really go there anyways so this was a good thing to lose since I wouldn’t go there anyways. I don’t know if I even would boycott Amazon if it ever aired the first Christmas commercial of the year. But I don’t count the ones in January. I just think about ones closer to the beginning of a Christmas season.

After 2020 ended, I still have at least one last Christmas related thing to watch. I won’t be putting it on any list, but I will be starting a new movie list on Thursdays so I finish with the at least one Christmas movie that I have left to watch before getting to the rest of them. I started going back to the main list of movies on the Friday that started 2021.

Here’s a reminder of how the list stood there at the time: Friday’s list of movie choices is The Best Years of Our Lives, crossover tape, Monsters Inc, Pooh’s Grand Adventure, Space Jam, and The Wrong Man. Saturday’s list of movie choices is American Dreamz, Despicable Me 2, Enchanted, The Great Race, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Oliver and Company. Sunday’s list of movie choices is Arrival, Ghost Town, The Land before Time, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue tape, and The Wizard of Oz. Wednesday’s list of movie choices is Baby Boom, Free Willy, Graduations DVD that I have (starting with my grade school one), Lilo and Stitch, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Toy Story 2. I will start making Thursdays the day of the week for first any Christmas things that I have to finish watching and then a new movie list.

I will be treating new movie introductions differently both this year and the next year. But I’ll have to explain more of why I need a new list on both Thursdays and Mondays this year. This relates all the way back to shelter in place from last year. And this also means that I can’t have one of three choices, them being Survivor: Borneo- The Greatest and Most Outrageous Moments, Survivor: Australia- The Greatest and Most Outrageous Moments, and The Ron Clark Story.

While there’s a whole list of things to be added at the start of 2021, there were two more that I could add in 2020 that will get first preference over the other choices. I also will not run the full slate of all of the movies that I could add again just yet at the moment. Now there are some reasons why I would and wouldn’t want The Ron Clark Story on one of the four existing lists, but I can explain that later. I do have to add it to one of the lists. I’ve never started a year with four lists outside of the times that I had to add the fourth one as a new one early into the year. I could have more than five choices too. But let’s not get to that at the moment.

On Friday, I watched The Best Years of Our Lives. I replaced that with Back to the Future. On Saturday, I watched American Dreamz. I replaced that with Copacabana. On Sunday, I watched The Land before Time. I replaced that with Kingsman: The Secret Service. On Tuesday, due to lack of programming on TV, I watched Copacabana from Saturday’s list and replaced it with Catch Me if You Can. On Wednesday, I watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I replaced that with The Ron Clark Story. On Thursday, I saw the last of what I wanted to regarding Christmas things not finished last year by seeing Celtic Woman: Home for Christmas. I will get to the next plan for Thursdays by adding a new list next week which I’ll get to then as the list is created.

On Friday, I watched Space Jam. I replaced that with True to the Game. On Saturday, I watched a movie, but it wasn’t from the list of things to watch. On Sunday, I watched Arrival. I replaced that with Finding Nemo. On Wednesday, I did not watch a movie from my list of things to watch. On Thursday, I created a new list of movie choices to watch. The choices are Flight of the Phoenix, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, National Treasure, The Omega Code, Recess: School’s Out, and Tower Heist. I saw National Treasure. I replaced that with National Youth Gathering 2007.

You might be wondering why I added a list of Thursday movies now instead of a list on either Monday or Tuesday. While you could think that this is to fill in a gap since I have a list on Wednesdays and Fridays, this isn’t the reason that I have there. Basically, there was an affect due to the shutdowns back in March of last year that resulted in a lot of my offering envelopes being unused and that results in there being the need for a movie watching list on two days of the week to ensure that I don’t have time to watch a show on DVD and risk rolling Survivor. Thursday is one of those days. Monday is the other. There will also be other changes with movie lists as well. I won’t need these lists for the whole year. I’ll need both starting out in March. The Thursday one can end before April will. The Monday one will have to last until June, with there being only one exception for it.

Since one of the three Survivor related choices is on Wednesday’s list right now, then that will mean that I can’t move Wednesday’s list to Monday to make up for it as the whole point of having these lists on those days of the week is to ensure that I don’t roll Survivor. And I forget where I mentioned the fact that I can rig rolls to ensure that I can see an episode in question. That could actually span multiple days since a new job and saying goodbye to the old one so I’d count the day that I’d start watching one of the episodes of Survivor, should I not finish it that day. That is also why I’m not going to watch movies all of the potential days that I have for them just yet. I will have to watch The Ron Clark Story on a Wednesday since that is when it is on the list, but not a specific one as I’d have to yield this blog to my Good Fight one since that is where the offering cheats currently apply. I’ll point out when that day is.

Of course, you might wonder, if I can rig rolls to go my way, why not have it set up so that I’m always posting about an episode from an old season each week? Well, it’s not as simple as that, although I have tried and been able to do that for a while back in 2020. A lot can happen and make it harder to keep up with doing this on some days than with others.

Now before I go back to the movie watching updates, since I mentioned Survivor: Palau in this post and I learned about the death of Angie Jakusz from Survivor: Palau, I might as well tell you more about here in this blog if you didn’t know about it already. I have Survivor: Palau ranked as 2 out of 40 seasons. I now have that season on my list of things to blog about again. I will watch it again, if that wasn’t clear. I will be seeing a lot of old seasons in the future, even if I don’t get them on DVD yet.

Now back when I was blogging about Survivor: Palau for the first time, I had something that I wanted to say about all of the contestants from that season and I put a prediction about Angie’s chances of coming back to the game again. What I said at the time was this: She would probably have a 30% chance of doing better the second time. Now I meant her chances of returning to the game when I said that. Now we will never know what might have happened with her as a returning player.

On Friday, I watched Back to the Future. I replaced that with Back to the Future part 2. On Saturday, I watched Despicable Me 2 in Spanish with English subtitles. I replaced that with Despicable Me 2. On Sunday, I watched Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue tape. I replaced that with Raising Arizona. While I did consider starting a new list on Monday now as I had enough choices for a new list, I decided not to at least this time, but still might in the future if there are enough options for it. On Wednesday, I did not watch a movie. I did not on Thursday either.

On Friday, I watched Back to the Future part 2. I replaced that with Back to the Future part 3. In case you are wondering, whenever a day of the week just happens to start out the list of that part, I will do my best to make sure that I watch a movie that week. You saw this with Wednesdays last year until it did not work out anymore. Now, you will see that with Fridays until this post.

I rolled the show on Saturday, January 23, 2021. This is one of the many rigged rolls, but I don’t think that I will draw attention to when I am doing those in the future. Just know that there are a limited number of those that I can do, but this limited number can increase. Now let’s finally get to the next episode of this show.

We begin with Sherea being glad that she survived the vote and looking forward to something changing. Frosti talks about having their leader Aaron in control of the tribe. Erik talks to Jamie and they seem to be in love. He mentions being a virgin for some reason. She thinks that this makes him trustworthy. She mentions there being a hidden immunity idol in the game.

James talks some about him feeling well on his tribe. Denise wants to ride his coattails. Two fishermen then come to their tribe. They are to pick two members of the other tribe to join theirs. Fei Long knows that this probably means that they will lose two members of the other tribe. Zhan Hu is none the wiser until the other fishermen come, thinking that they are just randomly gaining two new members. Aaron and James will be leaving Fei Long and will be part of Zhan Hu. Frosti and Sherea will be leaving Zhan Hu to be part of Fei Long. Jean-Robert wants to talk to the others while waiting for their new tribe members to come, telling them to target Sherea first and then Frosti.

On the way to their new tribes, the swapped members saw each other. We start on Zhan Hu with the tribe welcoming their new members. Todd is happy to build new bonds with his new tribe members. Frosti is worried about being in the minority on his new tribe. People are worried that Jean-Robert is going to be annoying. He wasn’t already? This makes Frosti glad as this could mean that there could be a person other than himself on Sherea that could be a target on his tribe. Aaron wants the tribe to target James. This is largely to get the target off of himself. Red circle is the name of a business, right? Peih-Gee talks about potentially throwing challenges to ensure that her original tribe merges five even with the other tribe. It is risky as she talks this over with Jamie.

We then gather for the immunity challenge. Jamie and Peih-Gee are able to throw the challenge with Jamie throwing a piece away and them doing terribly at fitting the pieces in. They are good at it. In fact, they might be too good as they might have been too good at throwing it. The women laugh at this as James and the others don’t seem to realize that they threw it. Erik is told by them that they threw the challenge in the end. He doesn’t want to lose on purpose. They decide between James and Aaron. They want it to be Aaron, but due to the anger of James, they might want him out instead. Aaron wants to vote out James to not vote out someone from his new tribe.

At tribal council, Jamie is too happy. She admits that she threw the challenge, which gives James a great face for all of the other people. Jeff admits that this must drive James crazy. James thinks that it will be him getting voted out. When the votes are cast, Aaron votes for James, James votes for Peih-Gee, while the rest of the tribe of Peih-Gee, Erik, and Jamie vote for Aaron. This gets him voted out instead of James. Was it a dumb decision to pick Aaron over James? I guess that we’ll see.

On the next Survivor, the search for the hidden immunity idol gets warmer and warmer with them doing the gross food eating challenge at some point. Of course, anyone could easily look up what has already happened in the game thus far.

Total confessional count: Denise- 5, Aaron- 8, Frosti- 10, Jean-Robert- 7, Sherea- 10, Erik- 5, James- 7, Amanda- 5, Courtney- 5, Todd- 11, Jamie- 11, Peih-Gee- 10.

New confessionals this episode: Peih-Gee- 4, Denise- 1, Aaron- 3, Frosti- 5, Jean-Robert- 2, Sherea- 5, Erik- 2, James- 4, Amanda- 1, Courtney- 0, Todd- 2, Jamie- 3.

Aaron was doing so well before the swap and he was entirely screwed by it. While it doesn’t make that much sense to vote him out instead of James, that is what happened. He could have done so well if that were not what was done. I do believe that this switch was the worst out of all of them. I do wonder if we will see Aaron on the show ever again. I give it about a 51% chance that we will.

Now as usual, I want to post a calendar of the scheduled blog posts for the next month, which should be February as you are reading this. I plan to do this at least once each post on an episode so if I can cover more than one episode a month, then that it is lot of known times that I will be covering all of the other blog posts that I have at the time. It kind of messed me up to not have one in January in this blog, but it shouldn’t matter too much what goes on provided that I get it done at some point. Remember that this is only a plan and not certain what will happen for sure as plans change, dreams take over, the world turns and we turn with it.

Planned February blog posts

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

I have a new job now that could eat up a whole lot of my time that I would have otherwise typically spent on watching episodes of these shows so hopefully I can get this all done and not have to worry that much about posting these episodes in the future. I hope to see you sometime on some day of the week with more posts of this blog. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Team Palau Version 2

If you remember from the archives of this blog, I would have done a version of this personal idea for a season of Survivor that would have resulted in a team of six players all from the same season to return for another season to play again. Two things can mess up this list. The first already happened with Blood versus Water: one of the selected players returns to play the game again. That could have happened twice, but I hadn’t posted the first planned version before the cast of Cambodia was made official. The other thing that could mess up a list was that a player from that season could die.

Now my previous picks for this idea were the following Palau contestants: Caryn, Gregg, Angie, Katie, Ian, and James. Now that Angie is dead, she can’t be in this planned season anymore. So who will take her place? And why would this person do it?

I have to pick a woman to replace Angie and it has to be someone from Ulong since there wouldn’t be one otherwise. I could go with Ashlee or Kim, but I think that I will go with Jolanda. She has proved to be quite a notable figure after her time on Survivor. She even has to make her facebook videos official so that people know it is really her. While she was the first boot and could be busy in life, I’d say that she is the best pick to replace Angie on this idea for this twist.

Well, I doubt that you would understand the twist idea in the end, but I’m posting my update about it here regardless. I am not sure what idea could work like this in the end, but figure that it might as well be worth discussing at some point to fill my blog with something of some sort or another. I think that’s about it this time. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Idea: A Survivor Season of survivors

 

Some of you might be confused by the title of this post. What does it mean exactly? Wouldn’t every season have Survivors on it since that is what the contestants are known as? Well, what I mean by that is that some people call themselves survivors when they have gone through some sort of experience, often negative, that they are said to have survived.

 

Would this work? Some might question whether or not some would want to be known as a survivor of whatever it is that they went through. Unless they are open with everyone to the point of wanting it and themselves known as that with every single contestant on this hypothetical season, then it shouldn’t happen. Would a cancer survivor want to be known as that by simply being on a show?

 

Thus, I don’t know if such an idea would work on this show at all in the end. It is an idea, but it might not be a good idea or one that should be done on this show. Would you want to know someone like that or not? If you had survived something, is that how you would want to be labeled on TV for quite possibly the rest of your life? That is what makes the idea just that: an idea. It isn’t one that might be worth doing depending on how some people feel about it. But it is an idea for a Survivor season. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Questionable Returning Player Choices that Proved us Wrong

 

Every now and then, we have a season with returning players in it and some of them prove to be a questionable choice in some way for some reason. Most fans would look at them and wonder why they were picked out of everyone, especially during Cambodia where fans helped pick the cast. But I’m going to go through those that I felt were questionable choices that proved us wrong by being great players the next time around that they played.

 

Laura Morrett from Samoa in Blood versus Water: She went from being an obscure player the first time around to making a huge dent on the game. And without Redemption Island, she wouldn’t have been able to become the great player that she did in the second time she played the game.

 

Sarah from Cagayan in Game Changers: From not going that far the first time around to dominating a whole lot the second time, Sarah was a good choice to return and she became one of the best players that the game has yet seen thus far.

 

Hali from Worlds Apart in Game Changers: She’s really only on this list because of my own personal views about her changing. She went from being a boring person that I couldn’t understand why she’d be coming back to being a better player than I could have imagined, despite not lasting as far as I now would have liked. She is quite wonderful now.

 

Well, this was a quick post in the end. I wasn’t sure what all there’d be to say, but wasn’t looking to do as much as I would have otherwise liked to. I think that I will have to write more posts and only hope that I can do more of the seasons that I’m working on and want to work on in the future. There is a lot going on in my life now and not as much time to watch stuff as I would like. Maybe I can get it all done. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor Past Season Watch for All-Stars

I’ve done a post like this before. What it means is that if you want to see old seasons of Survivor, you would have to watch certain episodes in order to understand the returning players of one of these seasons with returning players in it. All-Stars is unique in that it is the only season of Survivor to include players from every season before it. This feat is unlikely if not impossible to happen ever again. But if you wanted to see a player’s old season before watching this one, here is what you’d have to see:

The first season was Borneo. The players who returned from it were Jenna Lewis, Richard, Susan, and Rudy. Jenna only lasted until episode 9. Everyone else lasted until episode 13. The second season was Australia. The players who returned from it were Alicia, Amber, Colby, Jerri, and Tina. Alicia made it until episode 8. Jerri was voted out in episode 9. Amber was voted out in episode 11. Colby and Tina made it until the final episode: 14.

The third season was Africa. The players who returned from it were Tom, Lex, and Ethan. They all made it to episode 13. The fourth season was Marquesas. The players who returned from it were Kathy and Rob Mariano. Rob was voted in episode 7. Kathy wasn’t voted out until episode 13.

The fifth season was Thailand. This is the first season where you wouldn’t have to see all of the episodes to see the end of the game from the player who returned to All-Stars on it. Shii Ann was voted out in episode 7. The sixth season was Amazon. The players who returned from it were Jenna Morasca and Rob Cesternino. Both of them made it to the finale in episode 13. The seventh season was Pearl Islands. The player who returned from it was Rupert. He made it until episode 10. Basically, since nearly all of the seasons have at least one player who made the finale, only two of them don’t have you having to see all of the episodes to see all of their game. 

And that’s it for this post. Sorry if it was strange or otherwise pointless to some. You don’t have to see any old season in order to watch a different season that may have had the same players. But this is still worth keeping track of for me if for no other reason than to have a record of this. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.