The Two Lost Contestants of San Juan del Sur

You may have already known about this, but you may not have either. Survivor: San Jan del Sur was supposed to have twenty contestants and Redemption Island. That didn’t end up happening. There was a medical situation with one of the planned contestants resulting in that pair having to drop out of the game. We do not know whether it was a male/male pair or a female/female pair, but we know that it is not a male/female pair. This could potentially affect the rumored team in the game from the Amazing Race. However, since that team was announced awhile after the season started filming, they probably wouldn’t have leaked them as being part of it if they were the pair that was cut. You do have to wonder what will happen to these planned players now that they can’t play this season of Survivor. Typically, in past seasons, if a person couldn’t compete originally, they would be put on the next season. But, since these were pairs of players who have preexisting relationships, then we might not see them in the same season, since most seasons don’t allow that. I have wondered about RC’s father since he was supposed to play in Blood versus Water with RC before his high blood pressure removed him from the cast. He wasn’t put in the all-newbies cast of Cagayan, although I don’t know if he could have been. Cagayan might have already been cast and he might have been stuck as an alternate for Cagayan, something that could have helped him, but didn’t since nobody from Cagayan had to be replaced at the last minute. You do have to wonder if he’ll appear in the thirtieth season of Survivor, whatever that will be.

Back to the point, since this pair can’t compete in San Juan del Sur, what will happen to them? Will they compete in future seasons? They will probably have to be separated with one person on one season and another person on another season. How would it be decided who is on what season? Would they flip a coin or something? Would one of them decide to be on a sooner season than the other one? Will they only be able to be on future seasons if they make a thirty-first and thirty-second season? I could see this pair never being able to compete on Survivor. Or, one could appear on the thirtieth season and the other could appear on the thirty-first season. One could appear on the thirty-first season and the other could appear on the thirty-second season. One could appear on a future season while the other one might never end up appearing. We don’t know what will happen yet, but we could if we knew who either of these players are. I think that it makes the most sense for the first one to appear on a fall season and the other on a spring season so that during the fall season’s reunion show, the player who turned out to be the partner can talk about the game and talk about his or her partner being on the next season as a way of introducing the next season of Survivor that will air. Wouldn’t that be a great lead-in for the future of Survivor? In fact, if one of them is on the thirtieth season, they can introduce themselves as a lost contestant from this season, but they are on the next season.

Now, we think about something else. What is replacing Redemption Island? What is this new twist that would use the Redemption Island arena and, presumably, the Redemption Island duels? There could be different things that they could do with this. You do have to wonder if there will still be ways to get voted out players back in the game with this twist. Will it be something that can appear both before and after the merge? Will it be like Exile Island, but you have to win duels there to leave? Is it some sort of reward where you get to stay as much as you want to? Is it the right to switch tribes? Is it the right to get your loved one to join your tribe? Is it the right to banish someone to the other tribe? Will it offer advantages to the challenges in the game? Will it help only certain players? How will they decide who competes in the challenges? Are they lying to us and Redemption Island is still in the game? We’ll see what happens in good time. Sorry if this blog post was purely speculative. Also sorry if there aren't that many random blog posts before the premiere. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 1.13

Well, we’ve come to the end of the first season at last. This is sad, if I couldn’t just watch the whole thing over again from the very beginning. Now the ninth episode of this season was the most recent post that I’ve added, even though I’m ahead and started with this post. I’ve even written some random blog posts about Survivor that you’ll see starting on Wednesday after this is posted until the next season starts airing. (If my calculations are correct, there should be some time before season twenty-nine starts airing and I’m done with the first season’s blog posts for me to post some random things. September 17^th of this year is when we’ll see the first of San Juan del Sur.) The point is that there are some random things that happen starting in this episode that are considered firsts. But, I think that I’ll get into more of them later when I’m posting random things before a blog post actually starts.

Things became complicated when I rolled the right number and didn’t have the time to watch the finale. But, to make a long story short, I watched the finale on 8-16-2014. I can watch the reunion separately, but I don’t know if I will yet. People talked about the Tagi alliance or lack thereof. It probably did exist, but since only members of the alliance are left, then it really can’t do anything they want it to. The talk was mostly on how Kelly reneged on the alliance. Everyone wants Kelly out of the game, but fate had something else planned. The immunity challenge Fallen Comrades happened at tribal council. Sue and Kelly fought for the win while the men trailed behind. Kelly won the challenge after winning a tie-breaker against Sue. They then went right to the vote with no discussion beforehand. In the end, the men voted against Sue and the women voted against Richard. At the revote, before Rudy and Kelly voted against Sue and she was voted off. It’s possible that Rudy voting first in the revote seriously affected the game, provided that Kelly knew his vote was the same. It is in this move that Kelly earns the silver award for dumbest move of the season. By turning on her last ally in the game, Kelly cost herself the vote in the game that could have won the game for her. (I just lost the game.)

Jeff woke up the contestants and came to their beach. They then went through the Rites of Passage, which has vastly improved since its first appearance. They then went to the legendary challenge hands on a hard idol. Jeff had lunch in front of them. Richard made a speech and dropped out of the challenge since he figured that either person still in the challenge would take him to the end over the other person. The challenge had people repositioning throughout the challenge at some point. After a long time doing the challenge, Rudy accidently takes his hand off of the idol giving Kelly the win. This gives Rudy the bronze award for dumbest move of the season since his carelessness cost him the game. Kelly thought about who she wanted to vote out of the game. She decided to vote against Rudy and he was the last person voted out of the game. This means that she and Richard were the final two.

The two of them complicated what to do to the jury. They both decided to burn the camp down so we have them to blame for why people usually do that nowadays. Kelly made too many questionable choices in the game. Richard in the end has played the more honorable game since he basically created the game for other players. He’s the reason that so many other players have played such interesting game. Even though he wins the award for resident asshole of the season, you can’t say that he doesn’t deserve to win the game. Every member of the jury gets a confessional before the final tribal council, so I added an other confessional list.

Total confessional counts: Kelly- 57, Rudy- 37, Richard- 64, Sue- 56. New confessionals this episode: Rudy- 6, Richard- 8, Sue- 5, Kelly- 11. Other confessionals: Sean- 1, Gervase- 1, Rudy- 1, Greg- 1, Colleen- 1, Jenna- 1, Sue- 1. Note: last week, I posted the wrong number of confessionals for Sue since I had ten more than I should have. The real number for last week should be 51.

Richard and Kelly talked about how each of them did the best to win the game. Gervase was the first juror to talk and asked them both what they would have changed in the game. Jenna asked what contestants they would rather have in their place at the final two. Sean gave the first jury speech in the game. He also references something people talked about that was edited out of the game, but is in the greatest and most outrageous moments special that I plan to rewatch again. Colleen asked what three things helped get them through the game. She didn’t like his answer since he said that he was good at observation and he did pitiful in the fallen comrades challenge. Rudy made an incredibly short speech. Greg asked the two to choose a number between one and ten. This question would become quite infamous and seemingly affected the whole vote. But Greg said in some interview that I don’t have the link to and am not entirely sure he said that he was always going to vote for Rich and only asked the question to mock the serious nature of tribal council. Sue would give her famous rats and snakes speech which wins the award for most memorable moment of the season. Sue is the real swing vote whose vote does end up costing Kelly the win.

The vote happened next. Colleen, Gervase, and Jenna all voted for Kelly to win. Sue, Greg, Sean, and Rudy all voted for Richard to win. Their votes are what gave Richard the win. I’m unsure of the order that they are showing the jury votes in. They might have gone in any order and they rearranged it, but they might have shown us the jurors in the right voting order. Apparently, Kelly’s exit confessional wasn’t show in the actual broadcast, just the special that I told you about earlier. Now, I might as well get on to the reunion show since there’s a cat on my lap and I have nothing better to do right now and the reunion goes hand in hand with the finale anyways.

At the reunion, Bryan Gumble hosted because this was before the point where Jeff Probst hosted. All of the castaways get an introduction at the reunion, which is something that I wished they still did. Greg says at the moment that Kelly might have won if she had chosen the right number and gives the same speech that he gave when he voted for Richard to win. It’s hard to summarize what happens at the reunion show, but it is interesting. We do get to hear some of Greg and Colleen’s nomance. That means that they probably weren’t together in any real way. Also, does anyone have any idea who the Reebok guys are? I’ve never heard of them before.

Points at reunion show: Sonja- 4, B. B.- 5, Stacey- 1, Ramona- 2, Dirk- 3, Joel- 5, Gretchen- 2, Greg- 6, Jenna- 1, Gervase- 1, Colleen- 2, Sean- 4, Sue- 3, Rudy- 7, Kelly- 3, Richard- 8.

Before we go, I might as well go through a list of which members of the final four would return for future seasons. I’ll start with Sue. Sue played a great game and fell short due to Kelly’s immunity streak. She ultimately returned for Survivor: All-Stars and played quite a different game. In the end, she would quit the game after an incident with Richard made her go on a rant. Ultimately, because of the second appearance she had on the game, I’d give her a 6% chance of returning to play another season.

Rudy is the oldest contestant to ever play Survivor. He would break his own record when he played Survivor: All-Stars. He didn’t last long into the game the second time as he was deemed too weak by his tribe and was voted out, coming in 17^th place, a place no Survivor had (or could have) come in before. He was an alternate for Heroes versus Villains, but wasn’t chosen as he was deemed too old to compete in the game again. http://brioux.tv/2010/01/survivors-cram-cbss-heroes-vs-villains-bash/ This means that it’s unlikely we’ll ever see him again since he’s only going to get older. I give it a 15% chance that we will see him again in the future.

Kelly is an interesting contestant and many people like her. But, by not sticking with the alliance, she didn’t end up winning the game. She might have had a better chance at it if she hadn’t turned away Sue’s friendship. But, she is still a favorite by many fans. That doesn’t mean that she’ll return to the game though. She says that she probably doesn’t want to and has not ever been considered as an alternate for any season with returning players on it. People may want her back, but it’s her choice as to whether or not she’ll be back. I give it a 30% chance that we will see her in a future season.

Richard is a cocky person that can still pull off the win. He might have gotten too cocky with his winnings since he ran into legal problems with them. He says he’s innocent and I’m not going to judge him. To me, it doesn’t matter whether or not he really caused problems with that. But, like many people, he returned to play Survivor again before this whole financial mess happened. He played Survivor: All-Stars and pretty much did as well as he could, considering how everyone else was out to get winners that season. He ultimately was voted out when his tribe first got the chance to do that. As you might have guessed, he has been considered to return to the game. But, his legal problems have prevented him from leaving the country. He was considered for Micronesia, Heroes versus Villains, and Redemption Island. http://survivoroz.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/richard-hatch-interview/ This link contains the information about him possibly being on Micronesia, although I’m not sure if the link actually has the claim in the end. http://www.today.com/id/31870342#.U_EcKcVdVPc This link has the information about why he wasn’t in Heroes versus Villains because he would have been an obvious and great choice for that season. http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2011/12/survivor-redemption-island-mariano-replaced-hatch/ This link explains why he wasn’t in Redemption Island. And for all you Redemption Island haters, this is something that you’ll want to learn. Boston Rob wasn’t even supposed to be in that season and only was because Richard couldn’t play it. The reason he wasn’t in any of these seasons all stem from the same issue: not being about to leave the country. If these problems persist, we might never see him on the show again and that would be a shame. But, the problems might be over and he would be able to play again. I give it a 51% chance that we’ll see him in a future season.

Well, that’s it for my blog for now. I will go back to the regular blog posts on Wednesdays pretty soon starting with random topics and then going to the new episodes of the 29^th season of the show. I might as well tell you the revised position of Borneo: it now ranks as number nine out of twenty-eight seasons. There may be eight that I find better, but the position is much better than it used to be. Meanwhile, Survivor is going to be replaced with Family Guy episodes, but only the ones that fully parodied Star Wars. That would put Power Rangers as numbers 5 and 6 on the list while Family Guy would become numbers three and four. I will not tell you more about that part of the list for a while. But, what I will say is that I plan on rewatching the episodes of the first season again to get a perspective of B. B. Andersen’s time on the game. I will probably play a drinking game while I do it. Since I will not have it on the list of stuff to roll for, I will automatically watch it on Sundays as I slowly give up the movie watching list on Sunday and put what I can from them on Saturday’s list. Of course, the plan will change if I have to start posting another old season which will more than likely be on Sundays moving when I watch Borneo to Fridays. I will post updates about this in the blog as time goes by, including how I will wind up watching the special on the season again first. If you don’t care, well then as usual, just start reading the new blog posts starting at the paragraph after I say, “But enough of my ramblings.” I’m sure there are people who do that already. I hope that you enjoyed my blog on the first season. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 1.12

Without the option of recorded shows on VHS tape on the list of stuff that I roll for, you’d think that I wouldn’t be able to watch anything on it. Well, I might have already told you about this, but since I have given some sort of special priority to those shows, there are a certain number of days that I can wait and after waiting those days, then I automatically get to watch the next thing on the tape. So, while the tape itself will return to the list at some point, I don’t need it on the list to continue to watch things. Meanwhile, I keep dreaming about Survivor. In one of my dreams, we learned who the cast of the 29^th season would be and I had written an assessment of the cast. My Cagayan cast assessment has gotten a lot of views, according to what google says on my blog’s site. I do wonder both how it got so many different people reading it and how I got so many of them right. I’m glad that both of that happened, even though I don’t understand how it happened. I also don’t know why the blog post on the eighth episode of the season (Cagayan) got more than nine views. What was so great about that episode? I just know that maybe posting the link to facebook and/or twitter might greatly increase the view count I would otherwise get. Now that I have facebook friends that are Survivor contestants, then I will have to post some blog posts on facebook so that they can learn about this blog. For a long time, the first season blog posts that I was doing wasn’t getting a single reader, but telling someone about this blog turned out to be a great idea since now people have read it.

I should get back to the dreams about Survivor. In one of them, a contestant from Survivor died. The dream had clearly made up a person that didn’t exist. It mentioned that an older man from the Koror tribe had died. The point of the dream was that Palau and Koror became the first tribe to lose more than one contestant. Meanwhile, there is probably a really big impending change to my movie watching, random die roll list that I will tell you more about later. The affect will solely affect Sunday and make all the movie watching choices on Saturday. I only wanted one list in the first place, but too many had to be added at once so I ended up adding the Sunday list. And now, it looks like I have a good chance to get rid of the list by moving stuff from Sunday’s list to Saturday’s list. But, I will tell you of this long and painful process in the first post for the 29^th season as well as why I’m doing this. I will also give updates of it as things go along. I might as well get started on it. But enough of my ramblings.

On 8-1-2014, I rolled a five and got to watch the next episode of Survivor. This means, that the next time I roll a Survivor related number, I will have to have three hours of free time to watch the finale. Plus, I should watch a lot of the special features on the Survivor DVDs like the commentaries because I currently don’t have something to replace anything on the list of shows on DVD to watch, which is why I was hoping to put off watching this for as long as possible. Oh well. I’m sure that I’ll think of something, just like how I somehow managed to keep updating my TV blog during this whole time. People talked about how much they were at each other’s throats at this point in the game. This would mark the beginning of the Kelly/Sue rivalry. Sue thinks that Kelly is making herself to look like the one good guys of all the Tagi people which might explain why three people from Pagong ended up voting for Kelly to win the game. Richard said that this rivalry is good for his game and it could arguably lead to the reason that he would wind up winning the game.

The contestants went to a reward challenge at the mud volcano that helped form the island. I don’t fully understand the concept of that. Aren’t all volcanos full of lava? How can there be mud in them? If a scientific person wants to help explain the concept to me, then please, let me know. Or, I can always just look up more information about it online. The challenge is a muddy challenge that I know we have seen in other seasons. Kelly wins the challenge. When they return from the challenge, really corny music plays in the background. What’s up with that? If you have the DVDs of this season, then please, by all means, get amused with me at that scene. Kelly is taken to a secretly location that’s actually the production camp which is why she had to be deceived when going here. There’s more about this reward on a behind the scenes of the season.

Kelly and Sue are now best frenemies. It’s hard to tell what will happen with them, although I already know how it will implode. The immunity challenge seems like it could be familiar, but it may not be. They are doing it at the Pagong beach which is the first time postmerge that a tribe returns to an old beach. I wish that they did that more often. This challenge is reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project, which I’ve never seen and, in case you didn’t already know, never actually happened. It is a famous fictitious movie. Rudy is terrible at this challenge and more than likely could have done somewhere close to being good if he knew a single answer to any of the questions. Kelly ended up winning the challenge and unknowingly secured her place in the game. Richard is unsure of how to handle the whole situation of Kelly staying in the game. People are unsure of who to vote for and it became lost in the edit what would end up happening in the game. Maybe tribal council will explain more about it. But the only person that’s never been in the Tagi alliance is Sean and that would not favor him well tonight. He would vote for Sue since she’s the only person that he thinks that other people would vote against. The Tagi alliance of Sue, Richard, Kelly, and Rudy would all vote against Sean since he’s the only person not in the alliance and he gets voted out unanimously casting only his third unsuccessful vote. In a weird tie-in to the immunity challenge, Sean’s torch was snuffed before the votes were read.

Sean was a pretty interesting player. He may not have been that much of a standout, but he was interesting in his own right. But, one has to wonder (if one is me) what the chances are that he plays the game again. I see no reason why he wouldn’t play again, even if he might not be as likable a contestant. I give it an 80% chance that we will see him in a future season. That may be a bold prediction considering how there’s been no record of him being asked to play again. But he’s probably more likely than any of the final four from this season.

Total confessional counts: Richard- 56, Sue- 61, Kelly- 46, Rudy- 31, Sean- 41. New confessionals this episode: Sue- 7, Kelly- 8, Rudy- 2, Sean- 8, Richard- 7.

I don’t know why Rudy is scrapping the bottom of the confessional count, but it could be because of his screw-up in the next episode. I haven’t given the rest of the awards for this season because the rest all happen in the last episode of this season. I’ve said who the breakout character is and I’ve said who wins the gold for dumbest move of the season. The silver and bronze award for dumbest move of the season will be given out next episode as will the most memorable part of the season. I’ll even throw out the award for this season’s resident asshole, which for future reference will only be given out in seasons that have already aired, but are part of this blog. I would do a funniest moment of the season, but I would need to think of a funny moment from every season that would work and my mind draws a blank on something like that. But, I should be back next week with the last blog post of this season. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 1.11

I don’t know why, but I’m really starting to like this season. I don’t think that I’ll list it as my favorite season of all time, but I’ll definitely list it at a higher ranking than it already is. I currently have it ranked as 20^th best out of 28 seasons, but I promise that I’ll change it when I’m finished watching this season. To be fair, only seasons ranked lower than that are what I’d consider to be bad seasons, although ranking this as the worst of the average seasons is pretty bad too. Also, in case you are interested more in the rankings of the season, I will post updates about them whenever possible. I don’t feel like telling you about all of their rankings right now, but I will as time goes by. If a contestant from the season dies, then I’ll tell you about the ranking of it. If I already have told you the ranking of one season, then I’ll mention another season in reverse chronological order.

Well on 7-21-2014, I rolled the number five and got to watch another episode of Survivor. The Tagi alliance could be falling apart, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Kelly reneged on the alliance, but the other three members mostly remained loyal for the most part. The reward challenge happened next. The reward is a night on a yacht. Every answer they provide is a way up on the challenge and if you are that last one left on a stage, then you are eliminated. After a tiebreaker phrase in the challenge, Sean bested Richard and won the challenge.

While preparing to experience the reward, Sean was deciding who he wanted to bring on the reward with him. Kelly got the idea that it might be her. After asking what Kelly thought, she basically said that he could make whatever decision he wanted to. Then, like women typically do (no offense, but I do find this to be an annoying habit of some women, at least), she got mad when he made up his own mind not to include her. He chose Richard, who only got to include a small part of the reward. Sean picks Richard to go on the reward, probably since he came in second. Sean’s father was on the reward. This marks the first time that a loved one was actually present when someone won a reward involving a loved one.

Sean’s father visited the camp and gave the remaining players in the game a care package from different loved ones of each of the respective castaways. The immunity challenge happened next. Another noticeable difference of the challenge back then is that Jeff is actually in the water cutting the stuff needed to be removed at the challenge. Richard helps makes this challenge very entertaining. Richard is sure that Kelly is voted off tonight, but Kelly would wind up winning immunity. This would seal Colleen’s fate in the game.

Tribal council happened next. Kelly is deciding to vote to her conscious which didn’t help the Pagong players and wouldn’t help her. Since Colleen failed to keep Kelly from winning the challenge, people would vote her out tonight. While Colleen and Kelly voted against Sean, Sean, Richard, Sue, and Rudy voted against Colleen and she was voted out of the game. This would be the first appearance of the normally failed strategy of voting against a swing vote, in this case, the swing vote is Sean.

Colleen was a very likable contestant in the game of Survivor. She was considered to be on Survivor: All-Stars, but turned it down. You can read more about it by clicking on the following link on this page: http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/survivor_all_stars/2004_Jan_21_colleen_elisabeth. I think that it doesn’t say that much anyways, but I thought that I would mention it, nonetheless. She was also considered for Heroes versus Villains, but no actual offer was made because they knew that she’d just turn it down anyways. http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/02/08/survivor-heroes-vs-villains-jeff-probst/ Even though she’s been considered to play again twice, I don’t think that we’ll see her again on Survivor. I give it a 33% chance that she will play the game again.

Total confessional counts: Colleen- 38, Richard- 49, Sue- 44, Kelly- 38, Rudy- 29, Sean- 33. New confessionals this episode: Sean- 4, Colleen- 7, Richard- 4, Sue- 8, Kelly- 7, Rudy- 1.

Rudy is at the bottom of the confessional count while Richard remains at the top. You’d think that Rudy will get thirty confessionals before the end of his time on the game, but he might not. We are seeing a mix of numbers now, but things should even out towards the end. I, for one, will be glad when I’m done watching this season, although I do like what I saw. I’m so far ahead that it could be awhile before you see all this, but I will let you know about other random things in life that would affect this blog. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 1.10

You know, I’m thinking of writing recaps of certain players from this season (mostly the people who become returning players) and posting them when needed, such as when they play the game again, even if their second season has already happened by now. I will keep things up with them should any of them ever play the game in future seasons, which you’d think that a lot of them would. I will at least do one of Gervase which I could while I’m doing the affect that B. B. had on this season. I don’t know when I’ll start the regular posting of the Wednesday blog posts, although I know that I will start before the next season starts airing. Maybe when promos for San Juan del Sur start, I’ll post random things on Wednesdays as I have in the past before the next season starts airing. These posts might actually end before the next season starts, although I have no idea at the time. It could either end at the exact right time, sometime earlier, or sometime later. We’ll see what ends up happening. And, now the chances of watching this are only one in three instead of one in six (or five or four, whatever the number of choices there were before I trimmed it down). But enough of my ramblings.

On 7-16-2014, I rolled a six and got to watch another Survivor episode. Or, at least I would be able to if an annoying cat didn’t get on my lap. This will teach me not to avoid putting the DVD in the player before getting ready for both breakfast and writing this blog. I also don’t know if trimming the list was that good an idea since I can now watch the recorded shows on VHS tape again, although I’ll just wait a certain number of days to watch it since I still have the jump aheads where I wait a certain number of days to watch something and automatically see it. But, I will worry about that later. Just like I could always watch this Survivor episode later while I eat breakfast with the Price is Right. I have the feeling that I won’t be able to watch it when I would have wanted to.

Well, it’s now the next day and I think that things might have worked out for the best. I can watch this episode with lunch. People were Hatching a plan to get rid of Richard. I find that funny since Hatch is Richard’s last name. Kelly has broken with the alliance which may have cost her the win, but I’ll get to the real reason why she came in second later. Sue ironically says that Jenna talks too much, not seeming to realize that she does the same thing. The talk is all about an alliance and the fact that it is only eliminating Pagong members. Sean doesn’t seem to realize that there is an alliance, which would help reinforce the beliefs that he’s a dumb player. But if someone makes what should be a dumb move into an effective move, then is the move really dumb? Richard continues to fish to help both himself and other people. Kelly and Sue have a friendship, at the moment. This will famously implode later in the season. As usual, I will get to that later.

The castaways get the first in a small set of unusual treemails. Unusual treemails are so rare, that I can think of only two other examples of it. Gervase got news that a son of his was born, which marks the only time I can think of where contestants got personal news while they were still in the game. I don’t know why this was the only time it happened. The reward challenge started a series of what I like to call tournament style challenges, which you only see after the merge. Gervase easily won the challenge. He won pizza and a chance to call home. Richard is judging someone over their lifestyle choices which seem a bit ironic since he’s gay and probably gets criticized for that. But, there are other people who don’t really like that idea either, although many people are okay with it. CBS showed film of the other side of the phone call. Sue said that she wouldn’t want to be a dad, which I find a bit funny since women can’t do that. She probably meant that she wouldn’t want to be a parent, but misunderstanding it made it funny, even though you are getting it phrase wrong.

Kelly really doesn’t want to be in an alliance since she doesn’t care that much about the game. This gets into her bad game play, blah, blah, blah, it doesn’t matter now, but it will later. (Yes, I’m tired of what I keep saying over and over again and yet I tend to keep saying it over and over again.) The immunity challenge happened next and it was about building a fire. This challenge actually makes use of the torches in the game. I was wondering why a challenge like that didn’t exist, but I guess that I just didn’t know that it was. Richard won the immunity challenge and secured his future in the game. Meanwhile, I have finished eating and want something to drink, but my cat decided to be extra annoying today, so I guess that I’ll have to do that later. Drama happened at camp, usual since it is right before tribal council is about to happen. At tribal council, Sean talked about getting rid of his alphabetical strategy, which just happened to be the best time for that since he would have to target members of Tagi otherwise. Sue says that alliances are actually a good thing in the game. They are bound to happen, leaving a great speech by Sue, but not as memorable as one you’ll see later. We get to the voting. For the only time post merge, the remaining members of Pagong and remaining members of Tagi vote in one block against each other. Gervase and Jenna vote for Sean. Sean, Kelly, Richard, Sue, and Rudy all vote for Gervase. On the next episode, a trip on a yacht is the reward and the alliance continues to crumble, or so we’re lead to believe.

Gervase was a pretty interesting player this season. After what is currently a record amount of time away from the game, he returned in Blood versus Water with a more effective strategy. He started on one tribe and then switched to the other. He then made the merge partnered with his coconut bandit Tyson. Unfortunately for Gervase, Tyson did most of the work in the alliance. Gervase was considered just riding of coattails and got no votes from the jury once he became a finalist. Would Gervase ever play the game again? I think so. I give it a 75% chance that we will see him in a future season.

Total confessional counts: Gervase- 43, Sue- 36, Kelly- 31, Rudy- 28, Sean- 29, Colleen- 31, Richard- 45. New confessionals this episode: Sue- 5, Kelly- 5, Rudy- 3, Sean- 2, Colleen- 4, Richard- 6, Gervase- 7.

Well, Richard still leads the count for the moment and he probably will keep leading it for the rest of the game. It’s likely that in the next episode everyone in the game will have more than thirty confessionals. That is pretty high, considering the number of confessionals I have counted before in previous seasons. But they had to keep this game interesting for the viewers. They did a good job of that too. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 1.9

You know, there is a little known Survivor first that happened to Greg. Actually, there are two little known firsts that most people probably don’t know about or don’t care about. First, Greg became the first contestant to win immunity in one episode and be voted out at the first tribal council when he no longer had immunity. Second, Greg became the first contestant to win an individual reward challenge and be voted out in that same episode. Most people point out that he’s the first to win both types of individual challenges, which could have easily gone to two different people. But they don’t seem to realize the other part as well. Both things would happen again. First, I’ll start with the contestants who won individual immunity at one point and then got voted out the first time they didn’t have it right after they did. I’ll try to keep this simple with the straightforward contestants. Greg was the first in Borneo. He was also the only one in Borneo. It happened to only Nick in Australia. It happened to no one in Africa. It happened to both Tammy and Robert (this Robert not to be confused with Boston Rob, a different player) in Marquesas and they happened to be eliminated back to back. It happened to Ted in Thailand. Amazon is a bit complicated since Heidi was voted out after she had it, but she didn’t win it since Jenna gave it to her. It happened to both Rupert and Darrah in Pearl Islands. Darrah’s elimination was unfair since the jury had immunity instead of contestants still in the game. In All-Stars, Kathy, Shii-Ann, and Tom all were voted out the tribal council after they had immunity.

Boy, this trivia is becoming long and cumbersome. But, a rambling man’s got to do what he shouldn’t probably be doing. In Vanuatu, Sarge, Ami, and Eliza were all voted out after they had immunity, although we get to a bit of a special note in the list since Ami wasn’t immune once before she won immunity again and got voted out the next time she wasn’t immune. In Palau, Jolanda got voted out after her brief immunity was up, although this shouldn’t really count since this was before the real individual phrase of the game. Jamie and Rafe both suffered this fate in Guatemala, although Rafe was also vulnerable at tribal council before his last immunity win and inevitable vote out right after. This happened to no one in Panama. It also didn’t happen in Cook Islands. It happened to Edgardo, Boo, and Yau-Man in Fiji, although Edgardo shouldn’t really be listed with them since he never wore the necklace and got it as part of a weird twist. It happened to Erik and Peih-Gee in China. The trivia of it in Micronesia is screwy. Erik only got voted out because he dumbly gave up immunity. Yau-Man suffered the same fate that Jolanda did in Palau. And Natalie may have been voted out after being immune, but she never won immunity.

This then leads to Gabon where Marcus had the same sort of immunity that other people have. It happened to Tyson in Tocantins. This happened to Laura and Brett in Samoa. This happened to Rob in Heroes versus Villains where after the one premerge time he could win immunity, he got voted out after the very next tribal council. This happened to Jill and Brenda in Nicaragua. It happened to Ashley in Redemption Island. South Pacific is a little strange since due to Redemption Island, it happened twice to Ozzy. While it happened to Brandon, it isn’t the same since he was voted out right after giving up immunity. Also, in South Pacific, it happened to Jim, which probably happened due to an unaired event that almost happened. It happened to Jay, Troyzan, and Alicia in One World. It happened to Malcolm in Philippines. It happened to Andrea in Caramoan. It happened to Vytas and Ciera in Blood versus Water. At the last season that it could have happened was Cagayan where it happened to every member of the brains tribe that made the merge (Tasha, Spencer, and Kass).

Now we get to the contestants who won or helped a predetermined team win an individual reward challenge and got voted out in the same episode. I will skip the first season as it happened to someone besides Greg and I can mention it then. It happened to Jerri in Australia. It happened to Brandon in Africa. It happened to Sean in Marquesas. It happened to Ted in Thailand. It happened to Dave in Amazon. It happened to Burton in Pearl Islands. All-Stars was the first time that this didn’t happen. It happened to both Chad and Julie in Vanuatu. It happened to Greg in Palau. Some could say that it also happened to Janu, but since she quit and wasn’t voted out, then I don’t actually count that. In Guatemala, it happened to Cindy. That instance is quite famous since she won a car and was given a choice: keep your car and possible curse or give up the reward you won and give every other contestant a car. They put her in a no win situation which is why she was voted out after keeping the car. It happened to Sally, Courtney, and Terry in Panama. It happened to Parvati in Cook Islands. It happened to Stacy in Fiji. It happened to Jean-Robert and Frosti in China. It happened to Ozzy, Alexis, and Erik in Micronesia.

Then we get to Gabon. It didn’t happen to anyone then. It happened to Brendan and Tyson in Tocantins. It happened to Kelly, Laura, and Shambo in Samoa, thus making all individual rewards of that season produce someone getting voted out. It happened to Amanda in Heroes versus Villains, although that was mostly Colby’s fault for not helping her get the hidden immunity idol clue which she could have used well. It happened to Marty in Nicaragua and sort of happened to NaOnka, who quit and wasn’t voted out the episode she won individual reward. Since rewards were basically nonexistent (with few exceptions that I don’t care about) I can’t mention any of this happening in Redemption Island or South Pacific, although I’m pretty sure that there might have been a reward that Brandon won before he gave up immunity and got voted out. It happened to Michael, Jay, and Kat in One World. It happened to Jeff, Pete, and Malcolm in Philippines. It happened to Michael, Phillip, Andrea, and Brenda in Caramoan, although Andrea’s is a bit strange since a reward happened combined with immunity, followed by a tribal council, followed by another tribal council where she was voted out at the second one and this all happened in just one episode. Blood versus Water is strange, so I’ll just ignore that (not that it happened then anyways). It happened to Morgan and Jeremiah in Cagayan. Sorry for boring you with this trivia that you might not have understood anyways. But enough of my ramblings.

So, I finished watching (for the moment, at least) the show NCIS so I now finally trimmed the list of TV shows on DVD to watch to just three choices. Charmed is now numbers one and two. Power Rangers is now numbers three and four. Survivor is now numbers five and six. On 7-15-2014, I rolled a six and got to watch the next episode of Survivor. So let’s start with it. People talked about the previous tribal council and how they had to lie about the alliance in the game. This is when Kelly considers leaving the alliance and begins what would eventually become why she lost the game. (I just lost the game.) Richard correctly thinks that he’s ruling the game, but he should be more aware the people will eventually want him out of the game. There are some problems with the fish in the game. Richard is considered the only one who can fish, although he’s getting on other people’s (or at least Colleen’s) nerves.

Sean gathers the treemail for the reward challenge. Jeff offers words of encouragement which would become a precursor to the challenge commentary he would become infamous for. Colleen closely beat out Kelly to win the challenge and invited Jenna along where they both got a letter from home and a barbeque lunch. This would be the last good thing that happens to her this game. The other people on the tribe just went back to camp and had the regular camp meals that they always get. This is also when the first counter alliance to an existing alliance was made. This is when Richard streaks naked on his birthday or his birthday suit, as it’s sometimes called. It makes everyone feel awkward.

Since people know about Sean’s voting in alphabetical order which is wrongly assumed to be a stupid strategy. You will not see him win a dumb award this season since he doesn’t deserve it. Everyone on the opposing tribe comes alphabetically before his tribe. Because of the alphabetical order, some of the contestants decided that their names now started with z. The immunity challenge happened next. Rudy wins the challenge and becomes the oldest person in Survivor history to win an immunity challenge. I don’t know if that record will ever be broken.

We then get to tribal council. There is another alliance in the game. Also, I never released before how much I liked Rudy due to all the funny things he said. He thinks about lesbians because he thinks that a woman’s alliance might be formed, although I think that it was quite a while before one would happen and much longer before one was successful. At least there have been successful woman’s alliances since I don’t think that a man’s alliance has ever worked in this game. We get to the vote at tribal council. Kelly votes against Sean. Colleen, Gervase, and Jenna all voted against Rich. Sean, Rich, Rudy, and Sue all voted against Jenna and she was voted out of the game. This is why the alphabet strategy is secretly brilliant. People can easily vote with him and that person will wind up going home. Even with this strategy, every vote from this point forward that Sean would cast would be in the majority, until he gets voted out of the game. Not much is revealed in the promo for the next episode, but I’m sure that I’ll find out what happens later.

So, we reach Jenna who is the first I’m keeping track of to return for another season. She played again in Survivor: All-Stars where she started on the Saboga tribe. After surviving the first two tribal councils, she, along with Rupert, spent a record number of days without attending tribal council before she pretty much had to after the merge. She would be a part of every tribe that season, all four of them. She improved on her game a lot, but things didn’t go well for her at the final four. She betrayed her remaining ally in the game to avoid the potential of drawing for rocks. At the final three, she was outnumbered two to one and after failing the final immunity challenge, she became the last person voted out of the game. Many people call her moves towards the end stupid, but I’m not sure that they were because it was probably impossible for her at that point in the game to win anyways. Maybe it was dumb, but other people screwed up more that season, but I can talk about that if I’ll ever blog about the eighth season. Jenna is also known for doing a sex tape that she intentionally released as a publicity stunt. She has not been considered as an alternate for any season since All-Stars, but she could return as a (sort of) second chances player. I give it a 68% chance that we will see her in a future season.

Total confessional counts: Sean- 27, Colleen- 27, Richard- 39, Gervase- 36, Jenna- 33, Sue- 31, Kelly- 26, Rudy- 25. New confessionals this episode: Rudy- 1, Sean- 4, Colleen- 6, Richard- 6, Gervase- 3, Jenna- 3, Sue- 3, Kelly- 3.

So, we are getting to the part where everyone could get higher than thirty confessionals. They love Richard in the edit, which they typically do for the people who wind up winning the game. I can see why people say that he won it best, although I don’t agree with that. But I can’t say that he didn’t deserve to win the game, because he’s paying it harder than anyone else is right now. He invented the great game play that countless other players have done and many winners were able to play similar games. But, I should save my love for Rich until later. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 1.8

Well, I just posted the fifth episode’s blog post online and I’m starting to write this on. Being ahead on something is terribly unusual for me. I’m typically the biggest procrastinator that I know of. I would mention more about how I’m a procrastinator, but I think that I’ll do that later. And since I’m trimming down the list of TV shows on DVD to watch, I finished watching 8 Simple Rules, although I do plan on watching more of it should they ever release the third and final season of that show. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that someone has been reading the first season blog post of mine. I don’t know who you are (I might, actually, but probably don’t) but thank you for doing that. Getting ahead on this blog is actually quite a good thing to do. It has virtually replaced homework for me since I’m no longer in college. I would still be if I could still afford it, but we’ll see what happens in the future. So one is currently not a choice on the random rolling list and if I get that, I’ll just roll again. Just one more episode of NCIS, and it can be removed from the list as well (I know that there are commentaries from previous episodes that I haven’t listened to yet, but since I can trim the list down to only three choices for a while, I might as well ignore them for the moment). Actually, making NCIS one as well as three might solve my problems for the moment. I’ll probably find some way to burn the choices off so I can get to the more manageable and probably temporary three choices (only three choices, being the temporary part, not the fact that the three choices are temporary, which was already a given). We’ll see. But, enough of my ramblings.

On 7-5-2014, I rolled number five and got to watch Survivor with a snack. The snack was messy so I couldn’t keep track of the notes here at first. But, don’t worry, I can keep up with them now. After Gretchen was voted out, different people not in the Tagi alliance was starting to believe that an alliance of some sort was at play. Some people wanted to wait until another tribal council to know for sure that an alliance was really in play. Gretchen was targeted because she was a threat, the first such move in Survivor history. I have the feeling that Greg might have been voted out in the last episode if he didn’t have immunity.

Richard does the primary fishing and other sort of food providing. Some people don’t want to vote him out because of this, which probably further helped him win the game. He is a bit curious as to who voted for him last tribal council, although he doesn’t seem to care as much. Greg still admires Richard a lot, which for me, further destroys the theory that he would have voted for Kelly at the final tribal council. People are starting to think that Greg is a threat which is probably why he gets voted out later in this episode. Richard even explained in a confessional why he would want to get rid of Greg. Meanwhile, the tribe gets ready for the first ever loved ones challenge of the game which already makes me sad considering how I know that Jenna won’t get a video from her loved one. The challenge actually happened at their beach. I wonder how they decided to order the loved one videos for each of the contestants. In Greg’s video we see his sister who was supposedly offered to play with him in Blood versus Water. Poor Jenna didn’t get a tape back. But she did get to send a tape back to her loved one if she won. But, she didn’t.

Jenna lost after going after Greg who went first and got a target that no one else would beat. In this episode, we are even slightly treated (or punished) with a Jeff Probst commentary on the challenge. But, the first official of that appearance wouldn’t happen until later. Greg would end up watching his tape with the rest of his tribe. Jenna decided not to watch as she was still upset over not getting a tape. The tape and the response to it was weird. I’m wondering if they had to include a response to the tape since Jenna couldn’t win the reward otherwise. Jenna was feeling bummed and some people even thought that she wanted to quit. For some odd reason, the contestants brought their torches to the challenge. You do have to wonder if they’d ever do some type of challenge that would make use of the torches in the game, but I don’t think that they will do it. This challenge might have also been used in Panama, although I should get to that later. For the immunity challenge, Gervase pulled an early lead and kept it until the end.

Before tribal council, Kelly was starting to consider flipping, which would ultimately cost her the game. But, that hasn’t happened yet. Pagong is starting to regret their whole “vote to your conscious” strategy which failed them and explained their scattered votes in the last episode. Jeff explains the change to the game and that a jury would happen to all but the two of them that made it to the end of the game. The talk of alliances came up at tribal council. Finally, after seven previous tribal councils, Jeff is finally asking the hard-hitting questions that make people panic. Sue and Kelly smartly lied about their being an alliance because you don’t want to know that one has been established. The votes in this tribal council were between only two people. Gervase, Greg, and Colleen all voted against Jenna. Richard, Jenna, Sue, Kelly, Sean, and Rudy all voted against Greg. This means that Greg was voted out and he pretended to cry and be upset about it in what would become the first in a loose series of great reactions to getting voted out.

So, Greg, the lovable, popular oddball gets voted out in this episode. And finally, we have a contestant from this season who is rumored to have been asked back for a future season. He posted on his facebook page that he and his sister were both considered for Blood versus Water and they both declined being on that season for reasons unknown. Well, it was probably just him not wanting to do another season, if that source can be believed at all. That is the only known time that he has been considered as an alternate for any of the future seasons that they did. But, if I understand correctly, as much as fans love him, he doesn’t want to play the game again. In fact, he claims to have never seen a season of Survivor besides the first one. He probably liked the game, but doesn’t seem to like it enough to stay into it or be a fan of it. I’m not even sure he wants to be known for his time on Survivor. But, we don’t know the chances of him returning and I’d put it at a 49% chance. For me, Greg was such a wonderful contestant this season, he wins the award for breakout character of the season hands down. No one else seems worthy for me.

Total confessional counts:  Colleen- 21, Richard- 33, Gervase- 33, Jenna- 30, Sue- 28, Kelly- 23, Rudy- 24, Greg- 32, Sean- 23. New confessionals this episode: Richard- 5, Gervase- 5, Jenna- 7, Sue- 6, Kelly- 4, Rudy- 4, Greg- 10, Sean- 4, Colleen- 3.

Well, until Gervase gets voted out, it seems like he’ll be battling Richard for first place. With a lot of airtime this episode, Jenna has joined the two of them with getting more than twenty-nine confessionals. Greg briefly joined them as well due to his ten confessionals in a single episode. Everyone now has more than twenty total, which probably doesn’t happen that much in other seasons. But, I’m starting to see why people love this season so much, even though I have yet to change the ranking of this season compared to the other seasons. I’ll tell you what the ranking of it is when we get to the last blog post of this season. I can’t promise that it will move up to number one, but I’m hoping that it enters the top ten instead of being the bottom of the average seasons where it currently is. Expect more in the future, as always. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.