In the past few seasons we’ve had Hidden Immunity Idols and Exile Island in the first ep. Nothing like that last night.
Pagonging hasn’t really succeeded lately. At least, it didn’t last season. (And I think the season before that as well.) The show puts some twists in now that seem designed to cause intra-tribal problems. And frankly, I think Russel’s strategy is a good one. Of course, he’s being featured waaaaay too much, which usually (though not always) means an early exit.
Well, I don’t care for Russel, but as long as he is entertaining while he is being irritating, I can go along with that.
The first person who is smart enough to catch on to his manipulations, and questions him about it, is suddenly “threatening him”. He sold that well.
And as usual, the theme seems to be ‘get the good looking women off first’.
:: sigh ::
Nah, I think he was just an idiot. He swam the challenge in long pants and sneakers.
I liked the second challenge - they had to actually use some thought to get the whole team over those obstacles.
The thing that gets me is that this season, like last season, the clothes were provided by the show (that or the contestants were told what color palette their clothes must be), and we still end up with a Jaison wearing dress shirt and a sweater vest. In Samoa, for crissakes.
ETA: another vote for the losing swimming guy (John Fincher ? What the hell is a Rocket Scientist? And don’t they teach you to swim in Rocket Science school?) being an idiot. He should have just swam it naked.
The inappropriate clothing must be chosen to convey the the character the producers are trying to create for each person. They also give the impression that the person was dropped into the game as they appear in their daily life.
I doubt anyone would complain about that. Pretty!
Yeah, Sugar was pretty horrifying.
No Exile Island this year at all. They are going back to the way things were done the first few seasons.
By the end of last season, I was sort of wondering if Coach was actually hired and cast to be the villain everyone would tune in to watch. This Russel is striking me the same way. Is Burnett manipulating this?
Okay, I’m watching after being out of the Survivor loop for a few years. I watched religiously up through…I think…the Cook Islands…
It was nice to see Probst again, and pick out the archetypes for this season. But I think Russell is too sociopathic, and will be leaving us early - and I certainly hope I’m right. He is uncomfortable to watch.
I’m happy that there are fewer of the ones who made me burn out on this show - the young girls who are as smart as a box of rocks. I get sick of them very easily, and one of them winning All-Stars put me off the show for a while…
I totally agree that Russell is one of the all time A holes. However, I still can’t stop laughing whenever I think of him burning their damn socks.
How would someone even think of doing something like that.
I suspect that the degree of manipulation of ALL aspects of this and most reality programming would be surprising to the average viewer.
It was a bit of an eye-opener during the “Fans vs Favorites” season, that the definition of “Fan” was somebody who actually watches the show and wanted to be a contestant – as opposed to somebody who was recruited by the producers.
Yet again, hot chicks are sent packing first. Booooo!
Russell may be a tool, but my god that fucker can run. I actually rewound and watched him sprint to pick up the steps a couple times. It looked like the film was sped up, but I think he really actually just ran that fast. Awesome.
I have no problem with the evil plans, and I’m usually a fan of anyone who rocks at challenges. At first I was psyched he was aligning with the hot chicks, assuming he could keep them around a while. But then he turned right around and sent one of them packing. WTF? That’s eeeeeeeeeeeevil. He’s not just fucking with his tribe, his fucking with the viewers, too. (heh)
You don’t seem to grasp the premise. The complaint is that hot chicks get voted off first. This isn’t the same as saying that ALL hot chicks get voted off early.
On a side note, any Sugar fans might want to watch Sex and Death 101.
Any guesses as to who (and why) gets called out by Probst during next week’s rugby scrum? He looked pissed.
That was also my reaction, that Russel is some kind of plant by the producers, after the season where everybody “loved to hate” The Coach, they just had to have another similar character and planted one in the game.
I mean, what are the odds of having two such individuals in back to back seasons.
Another idea is that Russel was very explicit in his application on how he’d play the game and the producers just could not say “no” to him.
I don’t see any similarities between Russell and Coach. Little help?
Can’t say yet. It took a few episodes to to truly understand that Coach wasn’t just an arrogant putz, he was also barking mad. What’s similar is that they’re really unsympathetic characters from day one, and that’s probably about it.
With something like 100,000 applications to go over, the odds are long another tool will come along. The producers didn’t have to plant him, just pick him out.