Give Heidi a break. She’ll provide entertainment value later on…if she loses any weight, she’ll be so top-heavy she’ll keep tipping over.
This seems to assume that you cannot vote for yourself. Is that a fact?
Previous Survivor contestants have said that it’s sometimes as long as 30-40 minutes from when Probst says, “I’ll go tally the votes” to when he actually comes back with the urn.
Yes, he and someone from the production staff read through them and decide how to order them for maximum drama.
Whoops, I hit ‘submit’ too soon.
I think it’s rather interesting that he chose not to reveal that one vote for Christy. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt her feelings? I get the feeling that he wants Christy to go pretty far.
She has a couple of previous votes, right?
I assume that previous votes will not count in any future ties.
I read either here or on the TWoP Board that she and JP worked out a secret signal of sorts for challenges. If there’s something she doesn’t quite get from the lip-reading, she will signal him, and he’ll say something like, “Now this is important, so listen carefully. I’m going to go over it again to make sure you all understand” and then he’ll repeat it, but face towards her so she can pick up on what she missed.
Okay, I don’t have a problem with arranging the order of the readings beforehand; this is just common sense for a number of reasons. Not counting the remaining votes for a person who already has a majority, since the total-votes-as-tiebreaker thing was done away with a long time ago (IIRC, only two people were ever eliminated this way).
I do, however, have a pretty big beef with not reading the vote for Christy. It’s my understanding that you always read odd votes, period. Note that this was the first time ever that Jeff P said “the last vote will remain a mystery”, so you know he was hiding something. If he actually did it to protect Christy’s feelings, that’s just plain unprofessional. Do your job and don’t play favorites, dammit. If he was told to do this for the sake of the show…make sure she doesn’t freak out in the next episode or whatever…that further damages the credibility of this increasingly dubious “reality” program. Peoples is peoples…let them go nuts, cheese everybody off, etc., and let them deal with the consequences. You don’t owe anyone any favors.
I know they change rules on the fly all the time, often out of necessity, but I think the procedures should be consistent in any serious game.
BiblioCat, I’ll take your word for it (regarding Probst arranging the order of the vote reading). I won’t even ask for a cite. ~grin~ You sound pretty sure of your source.
[Homer Simpson]
Mmmmm… Crow…
[/Homer]
Dinsdale, sorry I doubted you buddy.
DKW, hasn’t Probst always said “the remaining vote(s) will remain a mystery”?
Just don’t make that mistake again, Algie. At least when the subject is something as important as Survivor!
Man, it’s almost time to leave work, and I know someone who has a 6-pack of Harp at home! 
Actually, not reading remaining votes is standard practice on this show, that’s how it’s always done. It’s just that this time, they appear to have deliberately ordered the votes in an attempt to hide the fact that the last vote was for Christy. In every previous episode, the unread vote that wasn’t revealed was for one of the two people the votes were being split between anyway.
As for Christy’s signal to Jeff to indicate that she didn’t hear something, I read this also. My understanding, though, is that this is only really critical at challenges, because they haven’t yet clued in the guys that she’s deaf. Within her own tribe, I’m sure she could just speak up if she didn’t hear something, since there’s no need to be secretive about it then.
Yes, he has.
We need DavidB in here for an official ruling on the vote-reading thing. I thought that was common knowledge that JP goes and reads the votes and then puts them in the most TV-suspensful-reading order.
It is a little odd that he didn’t read that one odd vote for Christy somewhere in there, and I also think it’s strange that Shawna threw a vote her way, especially since she was pretty sure Christy was voting with their little Boobie-Bloc.
Makes her look even more like a bitch, IMHO.
If I recall correctly, he usually says “there’s no need to read the remaining votes” followed by “grab your torch, loser, and start making up excuses for the Today show.” Of course, the latter part gets edited out of the broadcast version.
Yes. You cannot vote for yourself. Example: when they get to F3, only the Survivor with immunity casts a vote. Because the other two cannot vote for themselves, their votes are cancelled out.
Re: Christy
Jadis, I agree that the signal isn’t needed when the guys are around, but pre-merge, when do the girls see Jeff without the guys being here?
It’s the way he worded it that got to me…every other time, it’s been “No need to read the remaining vote(s)” or some equivalent. And again, this was an odd vote, and (probably) the first time he’s ever hidden one. More than a few past contestants have gotten pretty riled up over these votes, so this isn’t a minor issue.
Again, I don’t think the host should have any part in determining how the game is played. Let the players play; the referee has no stake in this.
At the tribal councils. Jadis is probably correct that Christy simply asks Jeff to repeat himself there is she misses a question and the editors delete this.
I completely agree. More importantly, I’m sure Mark Burnett agrees. I doubt he’d let Jeff Probst, one of his employees, get away with throwing the game in favor of one contestant.
As always, I’m trying to speculate on what will happen in future episodes by analyzing the editing choices made in the current ones. In particular, it seems to me that they have made an issue on air over Christy concealing her deafness from the Tambaquis. In my opinion, they wouldn’t have done this unless her deafness would later be revealed in some semi-dramatic fashion. So my new speculation is that Christy survives to the merge.
I just started to watch this, so sorry if this seems like a dumb question:
Why are they concealing Christy’s deafness from the guys? And isn’t it obvious from the way she speaks that she is deaf?
Also, when do the tribes merge? How is the game different after the merge?
Frankly, the boobie alliance is what is sucking me into this show. One of the things I like about reality TV is that people do things that I just can’t believe…and the boobie alliance is one of those things. “We’re skinny so we shouldn’t have to work as hard?” Okay, how about “You’re skinny, so you get a smaller portion of fish.” Geesh.
They are concealing because Christy asked them too, IIRC. I think it’s obvious from the way she speaks, but who knows?
The tribes merge, traditionally, when they get down to ten. Then, the immunities become individual, and not team. The merged group boots one person, and then the remaining nine become the final 2 and the 7 member jury. This isn’t as reliable, however, because last year, Shii Ann was booted when the tribes were living together, but hadn’t merged.
She also has an advantage in lip reading. I think this is an example of the powers-that-be letting them play the game. She has her own advantages and disadvantages, and it’s up to her to manage them as she sees fit.
Also, the only time I remember hearing her speak around the guys was during the toiletrys RC, and it seemed to my untrained ear that she was trying extra hard to speak normally.
As for the merge, who knows? They try to keep everyone on their toes, so they don’t reveal details like that in advance. As has been mentioned, it’s usually when they get down to 10 people, but they changed it around last time.
The guys may not be aware that she’s deaf but I think one of them figured it out. At the challenge for the ‘beauty’ stuff, the shampoo and so on, one of the guys–the only one who asked Christy–said “shampoo” very clearly and slowly to make sure she got it. It may just have been coincidence. Also, I think it’s fairly obvious–she has the accent.
But Christy, as Smeghead said, has one major advantage. If she gets tired of whining from that one girl or preaching from the other and so on, she just has to turn off her aid(s). That’s my favorite advantage personally.
BTW, I forgot to ask - did the guys get to keep ALL the fish from the IC, or just the fish they caught? If the latter, did the women also get to keep their fish? Either way, they’ve got quite a feast coming up. And now that they have a fridge, they could make up a big batch of soup or something and live off that for several days, which has got to be a huge advantage.
Also, after seeing how many fish they could catch in ONE HOUR, do you think they all feel really stupid for their fishing failure back in camp? I would.
Jeff told them at the start of the challenge that the designated fishing areas were chosen for their abundance of fish. The producers may have stocked them or done something else artificial to make sure there were plenty of fish.
So, no, I don’t think they felt stupid.