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.

Survivor: China episode 7: I’m Not as Dumb as I Look

I have taken far longer than I would have liked to write a lot of different posts on episodes of this show as at one point I was going to talk about the filming of Survivor 41 going on, but by now, it has already happened and a premiere date set for the usual time in late September. I got very far behind with this show and other things that I watch for various reasons. I don’t know what all I’ll talk about regarding the future Survivor seasons, but I do have a speculative post to write about in the future regarding more of the pandemic and I will be wondering about what has filmed, will film, where might else might see if they stop going to Fiji for a while, and how much has filmed.

Now I will be talking a lot about various shows that I have watched in the past from around at least the start of 2021 since there are reasons that I feel are worth covering. I’m going to start with shows that I had seen on Friday. Normally, I cover all of the days of week shows are on during Lent. Since I have done Wednesdays in my Gabon posts, I will go to Fridays because of Good Friday. They then to always air new shows then for one reason or another. This season, I was really only watching CBS shows at first as I saw MacGyver, Blue Bloods, and Magnum P.I. Later, I started watching Charmed and Dynasty when they were airing on Fridays. Charmed was at one point on Sundays so I will cover that in the next post on this season that you might not see in quite a while.

A part of me wanted to do more than the idols from Winners at War part 2 so I could go all the way to the last one of the season and be caught up to the present before the new season started. This will not be the case in the end. Enjoy just part 2 for now. Denise got an idol and had to give one half of it to Adam who then gave it back to her. She then gave the idol to Jeremy who then wasted it.

In this post, we are going to cover the challenges that start with h. There are a lot of them and this will cover some of them including links to other letters that you will see in the future. I will roll for some of them in future posts beyond this one and now need to work on getting the next ones covered. 

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

This challenge is also known as hard idol. In it, contestants have to hold onto an idol (well, touch it) for as long as possible. I think that this challenge could be done while social distancing, but only if each contestant were given their own idol, which might not work the same.

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

This challenge is also known as beastie buoys and discography. In it, contestants have to swim out to a ladder that they jump off of to retrieve buoys and then must use them to score baskets. I’m unsure if this could be done while social distancing as it seems like too much of a team challenge, although it could maybe be done in ways that could keep people six feet apart at all times. The name references a Van Halen song called Hear about it Later.

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

This challenge is also known as steeple chase and snake in the grass. In it, contestants have to chase the other tribe while attached to a rope and carry weight that must be passed to another if one drops out. Since it relies on people being close to each other, then it can’t be done while social distancing.

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

This challenge is also known as teeter tower. In it, contestants have to build a house of cards that is a certain height or the highest once a certain time is up with a variant that makes it harder to do the challenge in question since you have to hang onto it while preventing it from falling over. This challenge can be done while social distancing) 

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

This challenge is also known as a bridge you must cross and back in the saddle. In it, tribes or individual contestants must race through a course and get bags then one must get it through a wall with holes at the top. An individual version or one with a relay race done could be done while social distancing. This challenge has been merged with jail break and rice race and references a song by the name of Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin. 

Now in this old episode of The Good Wife that I’m talking about, I had discussed the possibility of a blog about Bob’s Burgers that’s probably never happening. Something that could potentially work in it would be me reviewing aspects of places where I have eaten during the summer hiatus. I had also written a poorly phrased sentence about only watching CBS that date when that episode aired. Marissa from The Good Fight was mentioned in this post at some point in time.

http://adamdeckergoodwifetvshow.blogspot.com/2016/04/november-first-2015s-episode.html

Now I want to share various YouTube links to videos that I feel make sense in some way. Well, it was a while ago when I mentioned a challenge that also sometimes used the name of the Grateful Dead song called Franklin’s Tower. Well, here is that song. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55TOIJxKc74

Thinking of China as it relates to this season also makes me think about chopsticks and the piece of music that is called Chopsticks. I seem to remember it being used for a song on Sesame Street that used that tune for a song that it made. Here’s the song here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tLhi-zAZUg

Another thing that is sort of worth mentioning is that I often do have typos in blogs as I mess up from time to time. This makes me think of the Weird Al song Word Crimes. One of the lines in the song is this: I read your blog post. It is really fantastic. (That was sarcastic.) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

Now while I have had a shitload of things recorded on tape to catch up on, I still watched some things here and there from the main list of things that I have talked about when blogging about Gabon. It is quite amazing how not having too much to record, I still had a lot put on tape. So much of it was not what should have been on there normally. That’s sad. 

Now I have decided that due to cheats unrelated to watching Survivor, I may only watch tapes on the main list while I also work to watch things on my second list (this one) at times when tapes are blocked, if I deem it that way in the end. And I may also ignore the second list for a while so I can ensure that I do a third list in the future. If things go the way I want them to, I will finish with watching Power Rangers season 3 before I finish with anything else on this list. If that happens, I’m more likely to ignore this list and everything on it to better hope that I can have only six unfrozen choices instead of the eight that I have that include the two frozen choices that I switch between.

Movie update: On Wednesday, I watched my grade school graduation DVD as I call it even though it does not actually have the graduation on it. I replaced it with my high school one. On Thursday, I had at one point wanted to see or start watching a movie then, but was unable to do so for various reasons. On Friday, I watched no movie then. On Saturday, I watched Oliver and Company. I replaced that with Our Lips are Sealed. On Sunday, I watched nothing.

On Wednesday, I started watching Free Willy, but did not finish it then. Thus, I watched nothing on that next Thursday despite having a choice still locked in on that for when I can watch it so I could finish that movie. I replaced that with Celtic Woman: Homecoming. I hope that I’m able to see that as there was some damage to the brand new disc when I checked it. On Friday, I didn’t watch a movie then again. On Saturday, I saw a movie, but it wasn’t from the list of things that I wanted to see. On Sunday, I watched Raising Arizona. I replaced that with Titanic.

On Wednesday, I watched nothing as out of confusion, I thought that I didn’t have what I do have as I did not originally find it when I was looking for it. I do keep this day of the week as noted as I might end up seeing The Ron Clark Story and will tell you which date that happens since it would mean that I’d have to update my TV blog then instead of this one.

On Thursday, I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I replaced that with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. On Friday, I was still watching The Lord of the Rings and hadn’t finished that so I missed any opportunities to see a Friday movie then. On Saturday and Sunday, I was busy spending time with family and didn’t have time to see movies then. On Monday, I had to put a list of movies there. Since I need Thursdays occupied now the same way that I now need Monday ones on the list of movie watching lists, I couldn’t form a new list of things to watch and can’t move Wednesday’s list so I moved Friday’s list to Monday and watched Monsters Inc. I replaced that with Fireproof. I did not have the time based on what I did to watch a movie on Wednesday.

On Thursday, I watched Recess: School’s out. I replaced that with Rat Race. On Saturday, I watched John Q. I plan to watch that again. I replaced that with North by Northwest. On Sunday, I did not have the chance to see a movie. On Monday, I watched Back to the Future part 3. I replaced that with Absolute Power. On Wednesday, I did not watch a movie again. But I want to when it works out.

On Thursday, I watched National Youth Gathering 2007. I replaced that with Night at the Museum. On Saturday, I watched North by Northwest. I replaced that with Liar Liar. On Sunday, I watched nothing. On Monday, I watched Rain Man. I replaced that with The Sound of Music. But it wasn’t the movie version that you are used to. It was a recording of a play that my cousins were in. I also looked through again just how horrible some of the videos that my neighbor had are so I won’t even attempt to watch them and just throw them all out. Just to clarify, I’m not calling the movies themselves horrible as I’m not even seeing them. The tapes are too dirty, damaged, or both for me to risk seeing it. And I would like to see a lot of them at least once.

On Wednesday, I watched Celtic Woman: Homecoming. Only it wasn’t a DVD like I thought that it was. It was instead a CD that I listened to through a blu-ray player instead of something else. I was concerned about it some due to potential issues with the disc in how I got it when I did. But it worked well in that one. It’s sad how a disc in an unwrapped case can still be damaged like it was. I replaced this with the original concert of Celtic Woman.

On Thursday, I watched Night at the Museum. I replaced that with Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. On Saturday and Sunday, I watched nothing due to the Easter weekend. Well, that’s not true. I saw a movie on Saturday that wasn’t from the list I have of things to watch. But that does not count as much. On Monday, I watched Absolute Power. I replaced that Bambi.

On Wednesday, I got to watch The Ron Clark Story which meant that I had to update my TV blog on that date (4-7-2021) instead of this Survivor blog. But that is a good thing because now I don’t have to worry about seeing it again for a while and I have a random post of this blog available. I replaced that with Mr. Bean’s Holiday. On Thursday, I had no time for a movie this time around and didn’t have to watch one at the time anyways.

On Saturday, I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. I replaced that with The Last Crusade. On Sunday, I did not think at first that I would be able to watch a movie. But then things changed. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I replaced that with Muppets from Space. On Monday, I watched Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. I replaced that with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

On Wednesday, I watched Toy Story 2. I replaced that with Toy Story 3. On Thursday, I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I replaced that with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I am going to write posts about that movie for my Elementary blog.

On Saturday, I watched Despicable Me 3. I replaced that with Déjà Vu. On Sunday, I watched no movie once again. I was actually still finishing Saturday’s movie then. On Monday, I watched The Sound of Music play recording that I have. I replaced that with Power Rangers: The Ultimate Rangers. On Wednesday and Thursday, I did not watch movies.

On Saturday, I wanted to be on a family trip, but felt too sick to go. But this means that I got to see a movie. That movie was Enchanted. I replaced that with Eclipse in America. On Sunday, I watched Finding Dory. I replaced that with Courageous. On Monday, I watched Bambi. I replaced that with Blast from the Past. On Wednesday, since I got my second dose of the coronavirus vaccine then, I didn’t watch a movie then and I didn’t do it on Thursday either.

On Saturday, I watched Liar Liar. I replaced that with The Little Mermaid. On Sunday, I rolled a choice that could not be watched as my brother had taken away this copy to make a DVD version of. I will not tell you what the choice is right now, although I did tell you some of it earlier. It will remain on the list to be potentially seen later. I decided to watch a Disney+ movie to review for a different blog instead. On Monday, I watched The Wrong Man. I will never watch that again. I replaced that with Thomas and the Magic Railroad. On Wednesday and Thursday, I watched no movies due to wanting free time since there would be a family visit that weekend that could take up time, but didn’t take up that much as I could and did watch movies that weekend.

On Saturday, I watched Our Lips are Sealed. I replaced that with Time Travel Through the Bible. On Sunday, I watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle. I replaced that with Hancock. On Monday, I watched some of the crossover tape. I replaced that with nothing as there is more of that to watch.

On Wednesday, I watched Mr. Bean’s Holiday. I replaced that with Minions. On Thursday, I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I replaced that with The Muppets Take Manhattan. On Saturday and Sunday, family visits prevented any movies from being watched. On Monday, I watched Fireproof. I replaced that with Decker Family DVD.

On Wednesday, I watched my high school graduation DVD having finally caught up to it from the time that I had rolled it, but never saw it since it was thought to be lost somewhere. I just couldn’t remember where it was as I didn’t look for the stack that I did have of it. But now I was able to sort of correct that mistake. Anyways, I replaced that with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. On Thursday, I saw no movies as I was busy doing other things.

On Saturday, I watched Catch Me if You Can. I replaced that with The Aristocats. On Sunday, I did not watch any movie. On Monday, I didn’t see any movies again. I could watch whatever movie ABC is airing then and might, but only when it works out in the schedule with all the other shows that I care about not being on for the moment and nothing replacing them at all. On Wednesday and Thursday, I did not watch movies as the potential for family visits made it seem like a good idea not to see any. The family visits continued on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. While I could have seen a movie on Sunday night, I did not choose that in the end.

On Monday, I watched more of the crossover tape. That remains on the list so I can watch it again. On Wednesday, I watched nothing in terms of movies. On Thursday, I watched The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood. This is something that my brother made a digital copy of, but I have the original back now. I replaced it with A Time to Kill. On Saturday, I watched Déjà Vu. I replaced that with Dumbo. On Sunday, I did not watch a movie so that I could spend time doing other things with lunch.

On Monday, I watched Blast from the Past. I replaced that with Beauty and the Beast. On Wednesday, I watched Celtic Woman’s original concert. I replaced that with Celtic Woman: A New Journey. On Thursday, I did not watch a movie based on what worked out that time around. On Saturday, I watched The Aristocats. I replaced that with The Color Purple. On Sunday, I watched Hancock. I replaced that with The Lion King.

On Monday, I watched nothing, even though I had rolled The Hobbit to watch. I did not wind up having the time for it that I originally thought that I would have. This should hopefully not be too much of an issue. Now you might be confused as to why sometimes I roll a choice, don’t watch it, and sometimes see something different when that day of the week comes again. Well, it all depends on what I want to do and allow myself to do and it is different than the other locked in choice that could happen instead of what I think could happen, if that makes sense (which it probably doesn’t).

On Wednesday, I watched Lilo and Stitch. I replaced that with I am Sam. On Thursday, I watched Rat Race. I replaced that with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I was on vacation with different family and thus had no time for movies as a result.

On Wednesday, I watched The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I replaced that with The Emperor’s New Groove. On Thursday, I watched A Time to Kill. I replaced that with Spaceballs. On Saturday, I watched Time Travel Through the Bible. I replaced that with Run Fatboy Run. On Sunday, I watched The Wizard of Oz. I replaced that with A Wrinkle in Time.

Now with this being a play of The Wizard of Oz, you might think that it would be like most plays I have seen based on the movie in question. The plays are basically the same as the movie, only it adds in the Jitterbug sequence that was cut from the final version of the film. But there are a lot of differences in how we did the play versus how the movie is.

Here are some of the changes: 1- The play begins with some of the songs played by the primary choir which would mean me. Most of them are heard again where they should be in the play. 2- The story part of the play begins with Dorothy’s arrival in Oz instead of in Kansas. 3- Because of this, all of the Oz counterparts to the real world characters aren’t in there. 4- The only Kansas character seen outside of Dorothy and Toto is Auntie Em. 5- Toto is played by a human actress. 6- Most of the male characters are instead played by women. Despite this, the Tin Man is still called a man. 6- Dorothy isn’t actually from Kansas, but is instead local to where our school is.

7- The lion stole the show as a lot of what she said got laughs from the audience. 8- The scene of the witch attacking Dorothy and company is replaced by just dialogue by the witch herself using some of the same lines. 9- Dorothy is told to go to the wizard before the wicked witch of the west first shows up and sets that part of the story in motion. However, this could be an error within the play that wasn’t meant to be there as the actors could have messed up and done it in the wrong order. 10- Neither the song of If I were King of the Forest nor Merry Old Land of Oz are in the final show, but Merry Old Land of Oz is performed by the choir before the true start of the play.

11- The lion still talks some to the company before they see the wizard. 12- Only one person from Emerald City is seen with some of what happened there being cut. 13- A scene after the poppys where Dorothy in company walk through some threat that the witch made that is brief is in the play that I don’t think was in the movie. 14- Only Dorothy and the lion are taken by the witch as Scarecrow and Tin Man are left behind with Scarecrow being taken apart. I believe that this is truer to what happened in the book. 15- The act break doesn’t occur until right after Dorothy and lion are taken prisoner. 16- Since it couldn’t have been included earlier, Dorothy singing Over the Rainbow was right after the second act started. This was in addition to it being performed by the choir before the start of the play.

17- Only the winged monkeys are shown as servants of the witch as the weegies or however they are spelt and whatever they are called are not in the final project. 18- The scene of Dorothy’s company breaking into the witch’s castle isn’t there due to other changes already mentioned. 19- The scene of Dorothy almost dying or whatever happened in the movie is not in the play as I don’t think that it is in any of the play versions of the movie. 20- I don’t think that the wizard makes his balloon escape where Dorothy is accidentally left behind in this play like he does in the movie. 21- The play ends with Dorothy returning to her aunt and saying that there is no place like home. As a result, it appears that the it was all a dream aspect was taken out of this version of the play.

Now I will get back to one of the things that I have prepared before going back to the really long movie update. CinemaSins did a video on the movie of The Wizard of Oz so I might as well share that as, with most of the movies that I watch at one point, I like to see their videos of them after the movie is over to offer a perspective on it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivJbR3vOJV4

On Monday, I watched the Decker Family DVD that I have. I replaced that with Front of the Class. That’s not much to talk about in this paragraph, but this might be the longest of the movie updates thus far in any post in any blog of mine.

On Wednesday, I watched Minions. I replaced that with Popeye. On Thursday, I did not watch a movie so that I would have time for doing other things in preparation of the Fourth of July weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, I did not have time to watch movies. On Monday, while I might have had the time to watch a movie, I decided against it.

On Wednesday, I watched The Emperor’s New Groove. I replaced that with Forest Gump. On Thursday, I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I replaced that with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. On Saturday, I watched Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. I replaced that with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. On Sunday, I had other plans for lunch so I didn’t watch any movie with it that day as a result. I could have maybe watched one in theaters that wouldn’t have been on my list, but this did not turn out to be the case this time around.

On Monday, I watched Power Rangers: The Ultimate Rangers. I replaced that with Invictus. On Tuesday, I watched The Ultimate Gift. You might remember that there is currently no list on Tuesday and this is not the start of a new one. I won’t be starting a new one until sometime in February of 2022 at the soonest. Why not the start of the year? Because I’m eccentric. I saw no movie on Wednesday.

On Thursday, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean. I replaced that with The Rookie. On Saturday and Sunday, I was on a vacation and saw no movies from the list of things that I have to watch from. But that is fine. I mean, from the last time I posted this season in this blog, I was okay with skipping a lot of the movie watching lists at times and still am now. But I also want to dissolve lists at some point. Also, there could be issues with some of the movies or at least their cases getting a bit wet so I may have to skip some or do other things out of a precaution until I know they are okay. Otherwise, I’ll have to get rid of some of the choices and do less lists as a result. I won’t know if I will do this in the end or not. Know that on Monday, I decided against watching another movie that time around.

On Tuesday, July 20, 2021, I finally rolled the next choice of this show to watch again. I watched it all then and finished it in a good time. I just hope that I can write this whole post. I’m writing it out of order with only the movie update part and recap complete. I might delay planned parts of this to other posts of this season or elsewhere in this blog.

We begin with Courtney still not liking Jean-Robert. I don’t blame her. Peih-Gee wants to trust James at this point in time. She and the rest of her old tribe members think that they are the underdogs. He gets the other idol during this time while the rest of them are gone. He is more coy about it than when Todd got it earlier in the last episode. Todd and Courtney argue over whether they should get rid of Jean-Robert at some point in the future. Todd needs him as a number and doesn’t want the other tribe to know about this target of Courtney.

At Zhan Hu, they notice that something is missing. Erik thinks that something is an idol and gives it to Jamie. She looks through the bag that James had when he and Peih-Gee were frog hunting. I know what a type of frog hunting is like. I plan to share that. Jamie notices that there are two of them. James knows that the not real idol is missing. He thinks that someone trying to play it would be the best thing ever. The tribes then gather for what turns out to be the merge. Jeff warns them that the game never stops as they enjoy the merged feast and are entertained in various ways. Amanda wonders who they will pick off next and wants to target the rest of the Zhan Hu members.

People arrive at the new tribe with Jean-Robert wanting to get rid of everyone else no matter what. Some do not like the shelter. Some try to think of a name for the merged tribe. They want to make sure that black is part of the name. Peih-Gee is wondering whether or not she has James or Frosti with them for potential votes. If she has them both, then Zhan Hu has a majority. They decide to name the tribe Hae Da Fung or black fighting wind.

Jeff arrives at the tribe camp to do their first immunity challenge. He will quiz them over what happened at the merge feast. The first question is answered right by six people: Frosti, Todd, Jamie, Denise, Erik, and Jean-Robert. The second question is answered right by everyone. Frosti and Jamie get the third question right with Todd having the potential to be correct if he didn’t change his answer. Frosti guesses the last question right. He said that he would do bad before the challenge started due to not, um, whatever he said, but he ironically won despite not, you know, memory right.

Peih-Gee is upset that they will now have to go to tribal council every future time until the end and hopes that James is on her side. However, James goes and reunites with Todd and Amanda, telling them about the missing blank slate. I think that Taylor Swift has it and she’ll write your name on it. Todd talks to Jean-Robert with him threatening to ensure that Todd won’t win if he is betrayed. Todd agrees to this, but doesn’t want to hold up his part of the deal.

Jamie tells Frosti about idol she has, not knowing that it is fake. She also talks to Todd about this with him seeing through her coyness. She claims that she is only playing dumb with the idol. Meanwhile, James worries that neither Jean-Robert nor Courtney might stick to the plan in the end.

At tribal council, Peih-Gee talks about her part in the game. Jean-Robert mentions that he has a good read of people. He thinks that Courtney will make it far and yet isn’t a threat. James thinks that he is a problem since he won’t shut up. Maybe he should take Biden’s advice. Remember what he said at the first debate? Peih-Gee thinks that she is finding the cracks to fill. I heard that a lot of women like to have their cracks filled. Jamie seems to think that she will know what is going on.

The votes are then cast next. Ultimately, Jamie, Erik, and Peih-Gee vote for Jean-Robert. Todd, Frosti, Erik, Jean-Robert, Courtney, Amanda, and Denise all vote for Jamie. After the votes are cast, Jamie plays the thing that she thinks could be immunity idol. It is not one so Jeff throws it into the fire. She is voted out of the game next.

On the next Survivor, Todd wants to blindside James, but not everyone is on board with that idea. This could create danger for him. Peih-Gee also wants to do a lot in the game by making a power move. Can she do it or not?

Total confessional count: Frosti- 11, Jean-Robert- 11, Erik- 6, James- 13, Amanda- 10, Courtney- 9, Todd- 20, Jamie- 17, Peih-Gee- 14, Denise- 7.

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

Jamie seems like a nice person. She is very pretty. I do feel that she is a bit ditzy and that could count against her. Still, I would have to say that her chances of returning to a future Survivor season when she might be seen as a more obscure contestant would be at around 69%.

Now I’ve worked out what should be a good way of updating my blogs for the future. Well, maybe not a good way, but simply what the planned posts should be. You will notice something different. Since I want as many options open as possible for me to update this blog for the future, then I’m going to do something that will correspond to a forced week off of this blog on a Wednesday anyways. Then, if I’m not able to cover a new episode of this show on the Wednesday that it airs (excluding Advent when it would be delayed anyways), I would have Sundays and Tuesdays as options instead of just Fridays. This might not make sense to anyone else. I have the planned Borneo post ready as it was written the last time it was February 29^th. While Blood versus Water is not yet on the list, I can still do the first post which is not on an episode.

Planned August blog posts

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

While there isn’t much else to talk about, know that I am hoping that I can write more of the posts on old seasons and do now have All-Stars on DVD to potentially blog about. I’m going to wait to do that until one of the current three is off of the list provided that nothing is forced to move up. I will get to more of what I mean in the corresponding posts. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Should I do Survivor Fan Fiction?

There was once an idea I had some years back where I come up with what is essentially fan fiction for the Survivor world and post it in this blog. I don’t think that I will ever do it. I mean, it would take a lot of time to do in the future and would not really work for this blog. I have no idea what legal issues this could cause. I mean, this could be more akin to real person fiction than anything else. But maybe I should change and write Survivor fan fiction in this blog instead. Do you think that this should happen in this blog? I could do it. I have no plans to at this point in time. If you think that I should write it, then let me know and I might change.

On Splitting the Votes

While I have a lot of planned top tens for the future, I have no idea if you will be seeing them at all since I need to come up with good things for them for you to see them. Now I’m going to talk about the now famous and often used vote splitting strategy.

How many times have they used splitting the votes thus far? It has happened 85 times thus far. That’s a lot. At 85 different tribal councils, a group of contestants attempted in some way to split the votes and it has be one of the most well known parts of Survivor today.

Someone on twitter once claimed that splitting the votes is never a good strategy. But it has been used to successfully get rid of 64 people. One of the two targets, be it the primary one or the secondary one, was successfully voted out because of it. Of course, it can be confusing with all of it being used and it may seem like someone wasn’t supposed to go when it became the secondary one instead, but the info that I have seems to point to that many times it had worked. 

Of course, that would mean that it failed to work right 21 planned times. One of them was confusing since it was Vince’s elimination in Worlds Apart and he was one of the two targets. But I think that I do agree with fandom in that it was a failure that time. It’s interesting how a failed split vote first happened at the fan’s tribal council in the first fans versus favorite season, Micronesia. They made history.

So this strategy has worked around 80% of the time. It is hard to know for sure what all this is like in the future as this will continue to be used over and over again. It don’t think that it is a bad strategy at all. I think that we will continue to see it a lot in the future. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Should There be a Survivor 40B?

What do I mean by this idea mentioned here in this post? Well, due to the pandemic, certain aspects of the 40^th season were cut short and not there. Should there be a follow set of special episodes to give us that? Should there be a reunion show or other aspects of the show created later?

You’d think that it could create a bit of a way to lead in to the long awaited return of Survivor. They could do a follow up of some of the aspects of the season at hand by getting the people together for a reunion show and other special tie-ins to more of Survivor.

What more could they do than just a reunion show? Well, the second and third season featured a back from the location special where they talked some with the players to see what their lives are like now that they had their moment of fame.

There could be other things done in this format as well. There are other Survivor related specials we could see. Since a good chunk of players have died, there could be a special about them at some point in the future. What else is there to say? 

I think that’s all I can think of worth posting for this particular blog post of mine this time around. I have an idea for a lot of top tens, but am unsure if I will ever do them in the future since I need to think of what all will work with them. Let’s just hope that I can find something to write about. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.