# Help Survivor not jump the shark - submit your premises **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 9, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529 "2013-11-09T22:51:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cheerleading\_Dropout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac8455/32.png) [@Cheerleading\_Dropout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheerleading_Dropout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/1 "2013-11-09T22:51:29Z")
In my opinion, for the past few seasons of _Survivor_, old players have been brought back to the show incessantly, and Redemption Island and loved ones visits have become ridiculously overdone. So - what twists do you think would make for a _really_ good season of _Survivor_? Here’s what we came up with: -Survivor: Twins (starting with sets of identical twins, put one on either team for a true test of strength - and the audience’s ability to tell them apart) -Survivor: Let’s Start World War 3 (each team is composed entirely of a different religion… yeah) -Survivor: Pacifists vs. War Veterans (it might be hard to find enough willing competitors for that season) -Survivor: Nuns vs. Strippers (we all know Survivor loooooves girls in bikinis, but let’s take that to the next level) -Survivor: Introverts vs. Extroverts (at first, the extroverts are loving it - until they start to annoy the crap out of each other. The introverts, on the other hand, have an awkward first couple days but soon settle in to the quiet atmosphere at camp). -Survivor: Language Barrier (one team is only Spanish [or French, take your pick] speaking, and the other speaks English. Sit back and watch the sign language come merge time). -Survivor: Cat People vs. Dog People (it would be very cool to see the different types of people that came to compete for this one). ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/2 "2013-11-09T22:58:44Z")
-Survivor: not everyone survives. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/3 "2013-11-09T23:03:31Z")
Blind vs. Deaf Babies vs. Feeble minded nonagenarians Ninjas vs. Pirates ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/4 "2013-11-09T23:35:06Z")
First rule: No returnees. Second rule: No Redemption Island Third rule: No clothes (move the show to HBO) **Survivor: Shuffle** - Shuffle the tribes every other show. Where is your alliance now, bitch? \*\*Survivor: But I was in line for Wheel of Fortune! - \*\* Snatch people from the audiences of different game shows and dump them on an island to survive (or not). **Survivor: Torture Colton** - All the winners of the past seasons get to torture Colton. They win money for the most inventive torments. Whoever gets the least volume of screams gets eliminated each week. The winner gets to kill him. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/5 "2013-11-09T23:56:05Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > **Survivor: Torture Colton** - All the winners of the past seasons get to torture Colton. They win money for the most inventive torments. Whoever gets the least volume of screams gets eliminated each week. The winner gets to kill him. I would pay to watch that! Am I the only one who would like see _Survivor; Classic_. IOW, just pick a bunch of new people and run the show like it was in the beginning. I want to see people get really skinny and have their hair fall out. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/6 "2013-11-10T01:40:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I would pay to watch that! > > Am I the only one who would like see _Survivor; Classic_. IOW, just pick a bunch of new people and run the show like it was in the beginning. I want to see people get really skinny and have their hair fall out. Man, I’ve been thinking I should watch the Outback season again. That was kind of awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/7 "2013-11-10T02:27:13Z")
Although for my money, the show jumped the shark when they gave Rupert a million just because the fans liked him. Thank god he didn’t make it too far in this, his third season. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/8 "2013-11-10T04:34:54Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Man, I’ve been thinking I should watch the Outback season again. That was kind of awesome. Outback was the first season I saw. My recollection is it really kinda wasn’t awesome. Everybody pretty much just sat around all the time, hungry. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/9 "2013-11-10T04:40:26Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > Outback was the first season I saw. My recollection is it really kinda wasn’t awesome. Everybody pretty much just sat around all the time, hungry. Yeah! They were all so worried that being proactive about food would get them branded a threat, so they just sat there and waited for the food to run out. And it did. Then the last of their rice got washed away in a flood. Then they had a memory challenge with questions about life in the outback, like, “How do you find fruit?” (follow the bats) and “Is this plant growing IN YOUR FREAKING CAMP edible?” (YES!) And then the pretty girl’s hair started to fall out, because scurvy was setting in. Awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/10 "2013-11-10T04:46:52Z")
A serious answer - I’d make it an all woman show. In general, the women seem to be the more interesting characters and less psychotic. They also tend to be more calculating and catty. The curve from weak to strong would become flatter, and the tired strategy of vote out the weak until the merge then vote out the strong might go away. I’d like to see women catch fish and build the shelter, rather than just weave palm fronds for the roof. I’d cast four beauty queens under 26, four butch lesbians, four mature older women, four thirty-somethings, and four celebrities that haven’t played before. Something like Danica Patrick, Katy Perry, Condoleeza Rice, and Rachel Maddow. That would be fun. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/11 "2013-11-10T06:21:28Z")
That’s an interesting idea, Lamar - so far, the (almost) all-women groups we’ve seen have seemed determined to turn on each other. Witness what happened last week with the women plus Vytas – they took out one of their own. I don’t remember what season it was, but we saw this before when there was a solitary guy, the last male survivor, with five or six women from the other tribe. The women turned on each other, and he won! (Anyone remember that season? The guy wore a red wife-beater and swore every week he was going home, and somehow kept under the radar each week and survived, to his own amazement.) Obviously without men these scenarios wouldn’t happen. I’d be curious how two tribes of women would plot against each other; so far we’ve only seen them plot against themselves and implode. Taking away the men might be a pretty interesting shift, and I’d be curious how that would play out. Sadly you’d lose half your demographic… ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/12 "2013-11-10T06:57:21Z")
I remember that season. I looked it up and it was Vanuatu. Chris Daugherty won it after going into the final seven as the only man. The women turned on each other and he slid through. My proposal isn’t to make a permanent change to all women, just as a shake-up. You could do an all male show the next time, but I don’t think it would be nearly as good. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/13 "2013-11-10T07:25:48Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > I remember that season. I looked it up and it was Vanuatu. Chris Daugherty won it after going into the final seven as the only man. The women turned on each other and he slid through. > > My proposal isn’t to make a permanent change to all women, just as a shake-up. You could do an all male show the next time, but I don’t think it would be nearly as good. Thanks for looking up Chris Daugherty’s season, Lamar! I agree, all-fem wouldn’t work as a permanent change, but it’d be pretty interesting at least once. And I agree an all-male season seems predictably like what we have; we might skip that. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/14 "2013-11-10T07:33:06Z")
_Literal Survivor_. Elimination is elimination. No need for prize money either. Only time loved ones meet the contestants is when they pick up their bodies. Makes for more interesting alliances when you are all about voting for people’s death. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/15 "2013-11-10T08:33:16Z")
Survivor: Aztek Demolition Derby. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/16 "2013-11-10T12:09:17Z")
Tweak the games that they play for challenges. There are essentially 5 types of challenge: - Athleticism - Puzzle, currently usually combined with the first one. - Endurance (stand on the pole till you fall) - really not fair to guys. - Memory cubes - Eating challenge Lets try something new: - Survivor auction, but instead of cash, Jeff gives you 10 envelopes - 5 of them have letters from home. The other 5 have blank paper. You use these to bid for food. - No more totem pole hugging. Instead, we have a platform over water. Platform is hinged at the bottom and held upright by a rope attached to a wall or another pole. You get up on the platform, and hold your platform upright with the rope. There are multiple ways to hold the rope secured with your body weight and muscles, so it’s more fair for different genders and body types. When you fail, you go flying backwards into the water. - **Cheerleading Dropout** just suggested a scenario in which there’s a high protein greasy feast before the challenge - like roast pork. You must sit at the table, but you can eat as much or as little as you like, and then there’s a mixed athletic / swimming / spinning around challenge. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/17 "2013-11-10T13:35:53Z")
I think an interesting idea would be a one tribe only survivor. Have everybody be in one tribe of 18 from the start. In addition, so that their would be more time for people to plot with various groups, the first vote would be on day 6 instead of day 3. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/18 "2013-11-10T13:48:07Z")
I liked it for the first 5 or 6 seasons, but now, it’s just the same stuff, different faces boring. Lately I watch the first episode and that I forget it’s even on again the following week. The funny thing is how, BB is just the opposite. I started off thinking that was a waste of electrons, but now, I’m hooked on it. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/19 "2013-11-10T14:05:26Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > _Literal Survivor_. Elimination is elimination. No need for prize money either. Only time loved ones meet the contestants is when they pick up their bodies. Makes for more interesting alliances when you are all about voting for people’s death. It’s been [done](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/?ref_=nv_sr_2). ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529/20 "2013-11-10T14:17:23Z")
I think Survivor should stop filming for a season or two. Seriously. IMO shows jump the shark when they’ve either oversaturated their network and/or it’s been on long enough for everyone to know “how to play the game”, and therefore isn’t as entertaining to watch. It’s not just Survivor, either – it’s nearly every single reality competition out there. Hell, one of the racers right now on TAR is, IMO, deliberately playing up bitchiness to the camera because “every reality competition needs a villain to make everything watchable” (this is Pinky I’m talking about, fellow TAR people). It’s like Top Chef: It’s become too predictable. Everybody going into a new season knows there’s going to be Restaurant Wars, a “replicate this renowned chef’s dish” challenge, a catering challenge, etc. It’s like everybody on this season’s Survivor deliberately burning every single HII clue because everybody knows what possessing that clue means. Where’s the fun in that? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-survivor-not-jump-the-shark-submit-your-premises/673529.md?page=2)