I think tonight’s easy to predict. In fact, I think the rest of the season is pretty easy to predict.
Either Jake or Penny is going to be voted out. I think Penny will go before Jake unless she wins Immunity, but I think Jake has a better chance then she does.
What do you think ?
<Don Maclean>
o/ So bye-bye, poor Pagong-ed Sook Jai. Looks like young & clueless beats the "fire in your eyes". Those whiny old farts ate you like you were pie, singin' Thursday is the day that you die. Thursday is the day that you die... o/
<Don Maclean>
Yeah, tonight’s a complete tossup between Jake and Penny. I have a feeling it will be Jake. He’s the smarter toss for any of the Chewys who don’t want to switch themselves and want to keep anyone else from jumping, since Jake is well-liked by nearly everyone and an attractive alliance partner. Nobody’s going to want to team up with a single Penny next week, though they might still be tempted to do so with a single Jake.
Needless to say, I see a continued Pagonging of the Soup Guys. And frankly, it’s what you have to do at this point. You can’t take a chance on a Soup Guy making it to the finals, because they’ll have a built-in hunk of Soup Guy voters on the jury.
You might also want to check out David B’s analysis over at RNO. He notes that even though Helen and Jan would benefit from jumping alliances, there are personal reasons why it won’t happen (for Jan in particular). I basically agree with him, except for one thing: I think Granny Jan will not be the first Chewing Gum voted out. She’s probably somebody the core alliance members could boot out whenever they feel like it,* and once all the Soup Guys are gone, the surviving Chewys will quickly turn on themselves. Whoever gets the upper hand will want to boot a strong member of the other side, probably either Brian or Helen. She might continue to slide under the radar even until the final 3, at which point anything can happen.
*Addendum re: tonight’s immunity challenge in spoiler:Jan is, however, an immunity contender tonight. From the previews, IC appears to be a version of last season’s coconut drop, only you’re snuffing out other people’s torches. Nobody sees Jan as a threat, so her torches will likely go unsnuffed until it’s too late.
Washington Post’s TV section posted a possible spoiler. An interesting one:
[spoiler] Survivor: Thailand (CC). A castaway betrays a former ally, and a 10th contestant is booted (Channel 9 at 8).
[/spoiler]
We see if they were correct or not. Spicy!
Cite:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17950-2002Nov20.html
lol jayjay. 
If Granny Clampet and the Blathering Gourmet have any sense, they’ll team up with Jake and Penny and take out either Ted, Clay, or Brian. The one thing we haven’t had this year is an unceremonius dethroning, like we did with the token gay dude last year (his name is blanking at the moment). I’d love to see the look on his face if Brian was voted off of “his kingdom” tonight. 
Now that I think about it more, I think they should get rid of Brian or Ted. Clay isn’t all that likeable, so I would try to get him against myself in the final two were I there on the island (There but for the grace of God go I :P).
If things get too boring, Burnett is going to have to come up with some creative ways to keep things going to fill an hour each week. Maybe he can drop off a different dead animal near Jan’s bunk every night.
What slacker said - on all counts.
Your spoiler seems to be an overstatement, elf6c. TV Guide has this to say, which is rather less dramatic:
One contestant wins a trip to the mainland and offends a friend by choosing someone else as a traveling companion. My vidcap-enhanced guess: Ted wins RC, takes Clay instead of Brian.
And here’s what CBS is riddling us about tonight’s show:
[spoiler]After being shocked by the vote at Tribal Council, one Survivor begins questioning a former ally as a secret plot is revealed. Note: Sounds to me like Ted distrusting Clay, or maybe Brian. I think that’s why Ted takes Clay along on RC, to help shore him up.
Two tribemates return from a surprise trek away from camp with full stomachs and a suspicious gift.
Meanwhile, one tribe member preys on the fears of another in an attempt to gain votes and become the Sole Survivor. Sounds like Jake trying to break up Chewing Gum. It won’t work.[/spoiler]
At least it sounds interesting Minty. After last week’s snooze-fest, a little trauma sounds like fun.
Yeah, we’re soon going to start seeing how the Chewing Gums have got their endgames worked out. Since Brian and Ted is the only firm alliance we’ve seen on that side, the positioning could get interesting.
The next 2 episodes aren’t doing much to excite me.
Agreed. Looks like it’s going towards a predictable cannibalization of Chewing Gum (which, granted, could be entertaining but probably won’t be.) I know Mark Burnett’s trying to make it more interesting and different every year, but the whole “picking teams” thing stopped being cool after about the third episode. I would welcome a completely revamped “Survivor” next year–various people have mentioned shuffling the teams; now that would be interesting. Maybe not constant shuffling, but just enough to keep things interesting. In Survivor III, when they switched teams, Silas (remember him?) looked like he was going to shoot himself. It was good TV, and something that I think Burnett could bring back if he tried hard enough.
Would there be a decent way to reverse things? By that, I mean could Survivor start with 16 people in 1 big group, whittle it down to 10 or 12, then split them into teams based on something random.
After that let it get down to 6 and bring them back together.
I know there are certainly issues with something like that (such as a 2 person team going to tribal council), but it would be interesting. As it is, even though people are now unsure of when a merge will occur they do know with certainty that the following will happen:
Split into 2 teams at the start
Battle each other for rewards and immunity
Merge at some point into one team
I guess what I am trying to say is that while Mark Burnett is trying to mix things up by changing the details, I think he could refresh the show and the format by going above the details and changing the format. 4 teams of 4, male vs. female, etc.
Or more then one person gets immunity- two or more at times (make it so you do not know ahead of time). Or true survivor contests- where the last place finisher gets the boot.
Lots of things to try. Heck how about 3 tribes?
How about not having separate tribes at all? Instead, pick teams before each challenge, with the losing team voting off a member. Then everybody just goes back into the big tribe until the next challenge.
(Hmmm. Odd numbers would present a problem, I guess.)
Imagine all the shifting alliances that sort of system might engender.
I agree, with the reshuffling of the teams, spoke. inty (and others, I’m sure) have proposed this before.
i really hope MB does something to shake it up. The familiarity was nice the 2d and 3d time around, but it has now made too many things stale and predictable.
Here’s a couple of little wrinkles, that could be incorporated with or without the team reshuffling. What do you think?
How about after an immunity challenge, the winning team gets to pick who goes from the losers?
How about having votes public rather than secret? Everyone fills out their card, and then displays them at the same time.
Anyone else wonder how JP can keep a straight face while saying for the umpteenth time, “I’ll go tally the votes. When the vote is given, it is final, and the memeber will be asked to leave immediately.”
A good example of consistency gone too far.
How about never having organizing into two tribes at all?
For the immunity challenges, set up competitions where the entire group could be ranked, and the top half (or top third maybe?) would have immunity.
This would ensure that the brightest and strongest would survive until near the end. You’d still have lots of dynamic interaction, and you’d avoid the tribal loyalty phenomenon.
Here’s what ABT has to say
Brian win the reward, Jan wins Immunity and Penny is voted out.
Penny got kicked
Well color me surprised. I think that’s a good move on the part of Brian and Ted, however. They both would have preferred to kick Jake, I’m sure, but went with the one their tribe-mates (i.e., the women) named. Helps shore up the trust among the women, and still kills one of the swing votes. Can’t blame 'em.
Jake is probably toast next week, with an outside chance at Helen taking the walk of shame.
If Jake couldn’t bring over and Chewing Gums this week, he likely ain’t gonna do next week. Jake has shown that he’ll go with anyone who will keep him around, which means the guys could align with him as easily as the girls. Look for Jake to get kicked, with maybe (if Helen is smart) a little jockeying for position into the final three.
If the rest of the Chewys are tuned into Helen’s doubts, however, they may turn on her. Hey, with only one Soup Guy, there’s nothing for them to lose–BTC simply kick him next week.
So how 'bout that Clay? The weasel managed to engineer last week’s vote, then he splits up the Soup Guys so completely that they didn’t stand a chance this week. The short-notice TC really amplified his double-agent act.
And Brian’s game still looks pretty good to me. It will be interesting to see who he goes with when he has to decide between Ted and Clay, but he’s the only one this season who’s shown a consistent grasp of how to play this sucker.
They made a good attempt to make this episode interesting, but the end result was still pretty predictable, as evidenced by most of this thread. I did think the challenges were unusually interesting, with politics being involved as much as anything else.
Most revolting Survivor moment EVER: Granny wanting a nipple on her canteen of beer. Bleeeaaaaargggghhhh.