The benefit was she made it to the Final 3, kept her “integrity”, and was one leg cramp away from taking home the $1M. You are right that she could have made a difference, but only in Helen’s favor, not her own. I don’t see how any other strategy would have put Jan in a better position to win.
Pash
I agree. It’s the first good one I’ve seen. Jeff asked all the questions I wanted to ask, and he didn’t let them weasel, either.
Crud. I had given up on the reunions after last year’s was so bad. Anyone know of a good summary online of the reunion show?
I’m willing to lay off Jan, because IMHO she did nothing wrong, and I kinda liked her, but she wasn’t purposely playing under the radar, either. I don’t think she played the game perfectly, either. She basically rode the coattails to 3rd place. She was a hard worker around the camp, as compared to Lazy-Ass Clay, but she was generally clueless. She was just damn lucky. If CG had lost some more challenges, rather than SJ, she’d have been the next one gone.
She was NO help in challenges, especially physical ones. She wasn’t real helpful in getting water, either. It was Jan and Helen who got lost than one time, when Helen said if she’d had a gun, she’s have shot Jan first and herself second.
If she had, in a confessional, stepped out of that Batty Jan character and become serious and said, “Yeah, they think I’m looney and harmless…they’re falling for my plan!” then I’d give her a lot more credit, but I think she was just there for a free vacation.
Nonsense. If she and Helen vote against one of the men, they have a 50-50 chance of going to the final jury vote–it’s all up to a tiebreaker. And even the tiebreaker was another stupid purple rock, she’s still got a 75% chance of making it to F3–and she’s still guaranteed F3 if the tiebreaker (whatever it is) is only between the two people who are tied.
By voting against Helen and becoming the obvious third wheel, Granny Jannie was reduced to no better than a 1/3 chance of reaching the F2. (And given that she had proven herself incapable of winning anything, her real chances were negligible.)
Tiebreaker or not, Jan’s chances were better voting against the boys than voting with them.
Of course, if Jan hadn’t gone along with them, Brian and Clay would have tried switching back to the plan they’d told Helen about: the three of them voting off Jan. Still, telling Helen about Brian and Clay’s treachery probably would have been enough to keep Helen on Jan’s side against the men.
I think the only reason Brian wanted Jan in the Final Three was because he knew it would be some sort of endurance challenge, as it had been in other Survivors, like holding onto the idol for as long as you can, and he knew she’d never last.
He had no intention of taking Helen to the Final Three.
How long did that Coin-Holding thing last? The last time stamp I saw was 8 minutes. Was that when Jan pooped out? How much longer did Clay last?
If I’d been doing it, I would have immediately (and purposely) dropped the 4 coins between my pinky and ring fingers, and between my ring fingers and middle fingers, and just concentrating on holding the two between my first fingers and middle fingers. The others would have made your hands cramp up, and it was too many coins to keep track of.
That was a horrible position to stand in. :eek:
It was about 15 minutes, as I recall. Clay dropped out right after Jan did–no need to go any further with Brian in his corner.
Fifteen minutes, huh?
I guess Probst was tired of those marathon 6-hour Keep-Your-Hand-On-The-Idol challenges.
I’m just glad it’s over…now, if I could just unglue my wife from 24…
Ooooh, 24…
I love 24! I want Santa to bring me Kiefer Sutherland for Christmas.
I have to say that my respect for Helen grew during the final epsiode(s). I have to give her credit for speaking her mind. And, of course, for being big enough to admit that Brian had played her well. And who didn’t laugh when Jeff asked her if she would have changed her vote after seeing the show? That was hilarious. “Even if it meant voting for Clay, who you…” “It’d be hard.”
ThatGuy said:
Uh, speaking as somebody who was there, I’m afraid you’re wrong. It was live (other than the 5-second tape delay to make sure nobody said something naughty). Now, if you happen to live on the West Coast (which, according to your location, you don’t), it was not SHOWN live because everything is delayed there. I do have to wonder how you thought you were going to be watching the finale with her since she had to be backstage at the L.A. CBS studio and then was immediately whisked off to a post-show party and press stuff.
OK, now that I have a few more minutes, here are a few more comments:
elf6c said of Jan:
Well, not quite. She did plot to get rid of Clay early on – she just didn’t do a very good job of it and Ghandia was booted instead. Other than that, as has been mentioned, staying low on the radar can be a working strategy. It’s not one I admire, I’ll admit, but it got her farther than all but two others!
Also:
Not yet, but I’m working on it. Normally, I’d have had it up that night or the next morning, but since I was actually at the show, I haven’t been able to do it (couldn’t exactly take notes while sitting in the audience).
puddleglum said:
Well… Second best. Rich Hatch is still the king.
Libertarian said, of the reunion show:
I agree completely. I even went up to Probst after the show was over, shook his hand, and told him it was the best ever. It was so nice to see somebody who actually KNEW what had happened on the show asking the questions (as opposed to Bryant Gumbel) – and he was willing and ready to ask the tough ones; can you see Rosie O’Donnell asking about the whole Ghandia/Ted situation? Not a chance.
Thank you David B !
I will keep an eye on your site.
Any word on the “changes” for the next season?
More fun with Brian:
I just have to share that I found out Saturday that my mom goes to the same church as Brian’s mother. We were baking cookies and she mentioned that one of her friends was following Survivor closely because “the son of some woman that goes to our church was on there”. She was fascinated to find out about his porn background–I get the feeling there’s going to be some fun gossip going on in her Bible study group from now on!
elf6c asked:
Not yet. It would be fun to speculate, but I really have no idea. If I’d thought about it, I should have tried to catch Probst in a discussion about it. Ah well, he probably wouldn’t have fallen for it anyway. 
My suggestion for putting an interesting spin on the two tribes half of the show and also dealing with the problem of old tribal loyalties making it obvious how the initial merged voting will go:
First day, split the players into two tribes randomly. They live that way through the first immunity challenge and the first tribal council. However, right after the tribal council, both tribes gather at some spot and are then randomly split into two tribes again. The newly grouped tribes live that way for three days, immunity challenge, tribal council, then are again randomly split into two tribes.
Imagine how hard it would be in the first half to keep a coherent strategy if the person you formed an alliance with might end up on the other tribe in three days?
Guaranteed to keep the two tribes as evenly matched on numbers as possible.(neither tribe would ever have more than one member more than the other tribe) throughout the first half.
With players constantly shifting between the two tribes, what sort of “old tribal loyalties” would there be after the merge?
Interesting. I think I like it!
Other possibilities include three original tribes (or even four), but I suspect they won’t do that because it would be too difficult to televise and get something about everybody to the viewers.