Best Male Prejury Boots

Last week, I did the list of who I thought were the best female contestants who were eliminated from the game before the jury started. Today, I will be doing the other end of the spectrum by telling you who I think were the best men to be eliminated before the jury started.

While the rules to this were mentioned in the last post, I thought that I would add something that I feel like I should. As much as I want to remember the deceased contestants, I’m not putting people on the list just because they died. I hope that doesn’t seem rude to anyone.

Starting with the first season, I would pick Dirk as a good contestant who didn’t make the jury phase of the game. I’d next go to Africa’s season to pick Silas who is one of the most notable players who didn’t make it far. In Marquesas, a great player who didn’t make it that far was Gabriel.

A player that I really liked who didn’t make it that far was James from Palau. Another one that makes sense for my version of this list is Dan the astronaut from Panama. From Cook Islands, I’d pick two of the people from that season as Anh-Tuan was a wonderful person and was even responsible for the now famous split the votes plan. Billy was also a nice player from it.

The only other players that I can think of that aren’t annoying enough to be considered or otherwise unworthy of the list are the wonderful to watch Zane from Philippines and the dominate John from Blood versus Water.

That’s it for this blog post. The new season starts tonight and you’ll see my post on the premiere when it is tomorrow. The posts will be on Thursdays for the foreseeable future, although I’ll let you know when it will change back to Wednesday posts. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Best Female Prejury Boots

This is part one of a post that you will see more of next week before the new season starts. I had this idea on the back burner for a while, ignoring it for over a year in favor of other posts. But I seem to know now that some of the planned posts won’t work and this one probably will. So I’m going to go through all of the seasons thus far and mention the best players who were voted out before the jury. I won’t refer to them as I have in the title since I know my computer will just autocorrect it to perjury.

Rules: In order to be on the list, either one must have only played once or one must have always been voted out before the jury in every season they played in. They can make the list if they made the merge but not the jury but that can’t make the list if they made the jury but not the merge. Anyways, that’s about it for rules that I can think of. This isn’t a top ten on my part. It is just a list of what I think were some of the greatest women of the game who never made the jury.

Let’s start with the first season. Sonja was a pretty memorable player despite being the first person who was voted out of the game. Gretchen was a notable player herself. Many think that she could have won if only things worked more normally then. There might be others that I want to include, but as much as I like them on facebook, they would have to have made a big enough mark in the game in order for me to consider them worthy of this list.

Thus, I skip to Palau where I’d choose Wanda. Her singing may have been really weird and may have left her unpicked for a tribe (like anyone knew that was going to happen), but her nice and strange ways were pretty entertaining for the brief time that she was here.

There are some random ones that I’ll mention. Guatemala had Amy who was even considered to be a returning player. They wouldn’t consider just any for that, especially someone booted before the jury. Misty proved to be interesting being the first person exiled when it was an official long term twist. In Fiji, Sylvia was interesting enough to choose the two different tribes of the game. And Liliana from the same season became the only contestant to be voted out despite being on a tribe that never lost a challenge up to the point of her elimination. (A twist brought her winning tribe to tribal council.)

One of the best women voted out before the jury was Gillian because she created reality rally. She played in the Gabon season. Other players that I liked were Elizabeth from Samoa and Kelly Bruno from Nicaragua. I feel that they left their marks even if they were gone before the second half of the game. You can see that in some seasons. Like in Redemption Island, Francesca and Kristina had the sense at one point to try to get rid of the person who they knew would otherwise win. Francesca played again, but she failed to make it far due, in part, to the same person who booted her the first time.

South Pacific was a bummer of a season for me because there were actually nice people who I felt left the game early while the people who were all still competing in the finale were just terrible (at least, that season), in my mind. But it gave us good contestants eliminated from the jury, such as Elyse, who was an interesting person, Mikayla, whose elimination that season stings me the most even though she wasn’t my favorite that season (that honor goes to Edna), and Christine, who should have gotten back into the game, but failed because she had to compete against the all powerful Ozzy.

Rounding down the list to the end, Sarah was notable in Philippines for kissing (the married) Jeff Probst. That gets her on my list. Marissa was pretty notable for her brief time on Blood versus Water. While I didn’t like her, I’d have to admit that J’Tia from Cagayan was great entertainment in her brief time in the game. And the last person who I feel is really worthy of the list is Alecia from Koah Rong who tried her hardest to play even when the odds were against her.

Well, that’s it for this blog post of mine. But while this post may be over, stay tuned! Before the next season starts, I’ll get the male side of the list. Who were the best men eliminated before the jury started their seasons? The epic conclusion will be revealed in next week’s post!

Fixing the Reunion Show

It is no secret that the quality that the reunion show used to have has fallen by the waist side. Even in a part of the show that might have at one point just seemed like an extra part to it, it still had a good point to it and it seems to have gotten worse as things went along. What can be done to fix the reunion show and restore it to the good that it should be again?

We should start by talking about just how the reunion show came to be such a terrible thing versus what it was before. This might relate to the rites of passage. Or it might have nothing to do with that entirely. But once they got rid of that, Jeff Probst started doing these prereunion show bits and ended up taking time out of the actual reunion show in question. I believe that San Juan del Sur was the first season that showed what a problem this would be. It hasn’t gone away and has only gotten worse.

Some may disagree with me on this, but I think that the first reunion show that started the thread of bad ones was Caramoan. That’s not me saying that there were no bad ones before Caramoan, because there were. But after Caramoan, things were different forever. Sure, Blood versus Water and then the next season of Cagayan had reunion shows that weren’t bad. I’d have to reread my blog posts on the season finales to know for sure what I thought about them.

Of course, this blog post isn’t dedicated to complaining about the reunion shows. It is wondering how we should fix them. There should still be an hour devoted to them like they have in the past. But what is the best way to address the problem at hand?

Maybe this problem has to do with Jeff Probst himself. He didn’t use to host the reunion show. This makes sense in terms of the first season as the reunion show was done while he was in Australia filming the second season. Jeff didn’t host the reunion show until Thailand, something that he thinks was due to the overall poor reception of that season, meaning that they couldn't find someone else who was interested. Only he was good at hosting the reunion show at first. What could have changed?

Whether or not it was Jeff’s fault that things changed or not, there might be a problem in general with the producers of the show that the reunion show gets short shafted. You can tell sometimes if someone gets more airtime than another at the reunion show. Look at the Redemption Island reunion show. They turned that into the Boston Rob show. Did we need another reason to know why Rob was so great by their reasonings even more that season? Plus, they can also tear a contestant down like they did to Dan in the Worlds Apart reunion show. I still don’t know why people think that proved his idea that he got a bad edit was wrong.

Again, complaining about the problem isn’t trying to find a solution to this. But what can really be done by us fans, though? It’s not like we can find jobs easily with Survivor production, can we? Besides, I think that the only job that they want people to apply for is contestant since they will always need more. So maybe all we can do is complain about hope that things change as a result. But would that work? It hasn’t made them bring back one of the sixteen players who originally played Guatemala. Although, I don’t know who else complains about that.

What should be done to fix the reunion show? For one, make sure that there is nothing shown before the show begins from the finale place except for maybe an introduction. Anything else about the finale can be discussed after the winner reveal in the reunion part of the show. Of course, if they just want to keep messing this up time and time again, it might be better if they just do away with the reunion show entirely. I’d rather not see it then see them mess it up time and time again. And I do think that Jeff, if not the problem for the string of terrible reunion shows, should still do a better job at hosting them. The most important thing they should do is get rid of those prereunion show segments.

Well, that’s all that I can think of for this post outside of this closing paragraph. I hope that this post didn’t get away from me, like they do from time to time. But I did enjoy some reunion shows in the past and I wish that we would see better ones again. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten Funniest Players

Well, I thought that it would be a good idea to come up with a top ten idea that related to more of the funny parts of Survivor in question. And that’s what I’m doing in this post. Hopefully I came up with a good list and sorry if this seems biased towards one gender over another.

#10 Tai from Kaoh Rong and Game Changers: He was quite interesting when he played both times. Of course, there is a bit of a damper in his game due to him aligning with the bad guys for a while and then leaving them. But he was a pretty funny player a lot.

#9 Zane from Philippines: He was quite a wonderful and entertaining person despite being the first one voted out of the game. I’ll admit: his strangeness was probably the reason that he was voted out. But he was a pretty funny person throughout his brief time in the game.

#8 Tony from Cagayan and Game Changers: His oddness and llama ways may have made people feel strange, but it was more than enough to make him feel like a wonderful winner in the end. Now he was too bad when he played the second time due to being the same type of player that people already knew, but he was a pretty funny player the whole time he played.

#7 Shane from Panama: He was eccentric and kind of crazy (just not in a bad way). But he brought a lot of enjoyment to this otherwise lame season. And while people may question whether he is still good or annoying, I think that we can find a happy middle ground with him.

#6 Fabio from Nicaragua: This is another player that annoys a lot of people, yet he was also a good form of entertainment when he was in the game. Some of it may have seemed dumb to people, but I still think that he was pretty funny most of the time.

#5 Teresa from Africa: There’s a lot of good about her and she was pretty funny whether it was her having sex on an airplane or other forms of entertainment that she brought to people. Plus, I wanted a woman on this list and couldn’t think of any others.

#4 Coach from Tocantins, Heroes versus Villains, and South Pacific: I may not have liked him at first, but he was always very funny even if he was a bit of an asshole. He actually may have gotten less noticeable as he played again, even though I liked him better as he went along.

#3 Phillip from Redemption Island and Caramoan: Okay, so a lot of people don’t like him. But he was a pretty entertaining part of the game and his oddness helped bring brightness to his first season. People were even willing to work with him the second time around, although I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe they thought he was a buffer. But his pink underwear and feather helped bring a delight to certain parts of the season that we otherwise wouldn’t see.

#2 Rudy from Borneo and All-Stars: Nearly everything that he did was entertaining and funny in some way. Who doesn’t love Rudy? He’s one of the best classic players and while he may just seem like some old whippersnapper, he is still a pretty fun player.

#1 Tyson from Tocantins, Heroes versus Villains, and Blood versus Water: He’s my pick for number one because nearly everything he did was funny in some way, at least the most recent time he played. He might be kind of a reverse Coach because he seemed to get better in a way as he went along and played again. But he’s pretty funny. Remember his bulge?

Well, that’s about it for this blog post. I should hopefully have these written more in the future. I just finished writing this today. I need to get more ahead of these. Despite Lent starting next week, these Wednesday posts will continue until the new season starts. I don’t yet know if there will be a random post like this the day the new season starts. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten Survivor Bromances

After a while of trying to figure out what would be a good post for this blog (I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t always know that they won’t until I try to start writing them), I thought that it would be a good idea to sum up the best bromances of Survivor. Typically, they are people who are aligned in some way for some reason that also have a good brotherly like relationship between them. I hope that I didn’t miss anyone that’s important. But here are my thoughts as to the top ten bromances of Survivor.

#10 Jason and Scot from Kaoh Rong: Yes, I hated them, but they were always there for each other even when Tai wasn’t. I figured that they were worthy of the bromance list, but not anywhere high so I put them at number 10.

#9 Grant and Rob from Redemption Island: This probably wasn’t the best relationship. Rob was known to manipulate Grant in many ways and helped to blindside him. But at least Grant was always there for Rob, although I don’t know if they still have a good relationship now that Grant knows more of what Rob was like that season.

#8 Will and Rodney from Worlds Apart: These were people whom others might not have liked that much (similar to the number 10 choice), but they were still always there for each other. I don’t know what else there is to say except that it took a while for them to get together.

#7 Ethan, Lex, and Tom from Africa: Here’s one of two groups of threesomes that are worthy of this list in my mind. They may have been separated for a bit by the first ever tribe swap, but they were always there for each other and dominated most of the merge game, even while dealing with Lex’s crazy ways. Now things were a bit messed up for them at the end, but they were still always there for each other no matter what all happened, even if things fell apart for them at the final four.

#6 Stephen and JT from Tocantins: To think that these people actually made it to the end together was a pretty good feat. They were one of the greatest duos, from what I remember. So many things went right for them that they were a pretty great bromance out of all of them.

#5 Matthew and Rob from Amazon: Well, I can’t remember all of Survivor that well, but I do know that this is a great duo of people that were there for each other. And I don’t know what else there is to say about all this. I wish that I could remember things better.

#4 Malcolm, Eddie, and Reynold from Caramoan: The three amigos did the best they could against the threat of the majority alliance. It’s a shame that they couldn’t do much and what they did do is still a huge controversy to some people. But they were a great group together.

#3 Tom and Ian from Palau: I don’t remember all of why these people were together despite seeing the season they were in as much as I have. But they were part of a core alliance from the very early days of the season and were together until the finale broke them up.

#2 Tyson and Gervase from Blood versus Water: The coconut bandits were a huge part of the season that they played as they got to the end together only for one to be ignored by the jury. The fact that they did so well together was a pretty good sign, even if it was a little lopsided as one was clearly the better player and has the million bucks to prove it.

#1 Richard and Rudy from Borneo: The original bromance is what I think remains the best one. Rudy did like Richard, just not in a homosexual way. They worked with other allies (or tried to, at least) and were there for each other until near the end when someone else won final immunity. But I think that of all the bromances of the game, this was clearly the best of them all.

Well, that’s it for this blog post. I don’t have much else to say so I don’t know why I have these weird closing segments in these random blog posts. Oh, well. I might be getting myself Survivor: Gabon on DVD soon. In case you ever see posts on Sundays, you’ll know why. I still need to work on the Sue recap from the first season that I was promising to do in the past and hope to get it done eventually. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Is the final four tie-breaker irrelevant?

When you get to the finale and you get to the final four, there are sometimes when the vote is split between two people and a tie happens. This happened in the very first season, only it was resolved by a revote. In the fourth season, it was controversially resolved by a rock drawing tie-breaker that even Jeff himself says never should have happened. It was finally revealed in the tenth season that the proper way to resolve a tie at the final four was through a fire making challenge. But there are problems with this that I’m not sure if people have noticed.

One thing that I should add in this post before I get any further is that this only factors in seasons from before Heroes versus Healers versus Hustlers because of the twist that they used at the end. I will only be talking about the seasons that are mentioned that used it as a tie-breaker and not as a forced twist upon the rest of the players.

Survivor: Palau was the first season where this happened and the first time people knew that the twist involving the tie-breaker at the end was different. Jenn and Ian faced off in the tie-breaker. Ian won, only to get voted out last. This is the only season where the winner of the tie-breaker didn’t become a finalist in the end. It kind of makes you wonder what the point of the whole thing was.

Survivor: Panama had Cirie and Danielle tied at the final four. Cirie was eliminated at the tie-breaker. This was the only season besides Palau to have this challenge and have a final two happen. Danielle made it there by winning the final immunity challenge (although she would have made it there while losing it, due to the contempt of the remaining men against each other), but she didn’t win the game, although she might have by default since the remaining player was injured.

Survivor: Cook Island is the first example of this failing in a final three scenario as it is the first season to have one. The winner of this tie-breaker became the first person not to get a single jury vote at the end of the game. It is likely that if the challenge was won by the other player, this person also would have been ignored by the jury.

Survivor: Gabon might be the only time where the fire making tie-breaker actually mattered. When it was done this time, it would determine who would win the season. Indeed, Bob won the challenge and won the season as a result. Matty, who lost the challenge, would have probably won the season if he were the winner instead. But this season seems to be the only exception to the rule that it just doesn’t matter who wins the challenge.

Survivor: Worlds Apart was when the tie-breaker next appeared after a long absence from being needed in the game. This was the second worst version of it as, like Cook Islands, it took a while for either of the two players to do anything. There was a bit of a controversy regarding a broken flint that was replaced by one contestant and then given to the other when they ran out of time. Now it might be due to this poor performance that the winner of the challenge wasn’t treated nicely by the jury. But the tie wasn’t exactly something that was avoidable this time around. It never is when it happens. All that the winner of this challenge got was a single jury vote.

Survivor: Kaoh Rong is the most recent time where the tie-breaker appeared in a normal manner. Aubry and Cydney competed for a spot in the final three and Aubry won. She was controversially ignored by the majority of the jury, but I still love that she didn’t win as she seemed far too stuck up. This season had a good winner and I hope that people realize it at some point. Now I don’t know if the vote would have been for someone other than Michele if Cydney were there instead of Aubry. I wouldn’t think so, but I’ll never know for sure, will I?

Basically, only once has the winner of the final four tie-breaker actually won the game (not counting Borneo as it was solved by a revote). If the winner of the challenge was ever reversed, would that person have won instead of losing at the jury or getting voted out like Ian did? We’ll never know for sure about what could have happened. I do know that changing the tie-breaker method may not be that good a thing to do. I mean, it isn’t anyone’s fault that these people don’t win.

Of course, something to keep in mind is that different twists and changes in the game could bring forth a change into what could happen with this twist and if it is done away with our replaced in some way. In the 35^th and 36^th season, we saw or will see a twist that will pretty much force a tie between two players and force them into a fire-making challenge to stay in the game. They shouldn’t do sudden changes like this, but there could be changes in what happens and it could be more important. I don’t like that they would force something like this, but I’m already weary of how the next season will end.

That’s all for this blog post, outside of this paragraph. I have a landmark post coming up soon and hope that it will be a random post like this, although it could be about the next season. You’ll keep seeing these Wednesday posts in the meantime, but be prepared for potential changes. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor Past Season Watch for Blood versus Water

Now that Blood versus Water is out on DVD, you might wonder what would be a good way of keeping track of all the former players from before this season that would be playing it again. There’s a cast of ten returning players and they have all played at least once. What’s the best way of getting caught up on the seasons before?

You would need to see Borneo to get caught up on Gervase’s game from it. He lasted until episode 10. That would mean that you’d only have to watch until that episode to get all of his game in. You would need Australia to get caught up on Tina’s first time playing. Since she won the season, you’d have to watch all 14 episodes that season. You would not have to watch Africa, Marquesas, Thailand, or Amazon in order to know about the Blood versus Water season, although it might help for other seasons. The next season to watch would be Pearl Islands which has Rupert in it. He lasted until episode 10.

Tina and Rupert would both play again in All-Stars. You would only need to watch the first episode to see Tina’s game on it. Meanwhile, Rupert went on to be in episode 15, which was the last episode of the season when he got voted out. You wouldn’t have to watch Vanuatu, Palau, or Guatemala in order to know a player’s game from this season. From Panama, you have Aras as a player and he won the season. That would mean watching every episode that season. From Cook Islands, you have Candice who made it to episode 11 of that season.

There was no one from Fiji, China, Micronesia, or Gabon in this season. Tocantins had Tyson who made it to episode 9 of that season. Samoa had Laura Morett who made it to episode 10 that season. Heroes versus Villains brought back Rupert, Candice, and Tyson. You would need to watch until episode 6 to get Tyson’s game, episode 12 for the end of Candice’s game, and episode 13 for the end of Rupert’s game. There were no players from Nicaragua, Redemption Island, or South Pacific.

From One World, one would have three players to keep track of. Monica lasted until episode 5, Colton lasted until episode 6, and Kat lasted until episode 12. Those are all the players and all the seasons that you would have to watch to know of their games from old seasons. That’s a lot of seasons and a lot of episodes from each season. You wouldn’t have to watch Philippines or Caramoan to get caught up. But it seems like a lot of potential watching to do.

Well, that’s it for this random post. I don’t have a newly acquired old season to watch on DVD yet. That means that these Wednesday posts will continue until the new season starts. You might even see some random posts on Sundays, possibly, although I will tell you if that happens or not so be on the lookout in case it does as it will probably happen before I could tell you about it (if that makes sense). For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.