Survivor 38: Edge of Extinction premieres Wednesday

Not quite what you are looking for, but Dalton Ross’ weekly recap hits on some of the major catalysts

Thanks.

Some contestants are great at this. It’s a very important skill, I agree with you. But Probst and the rest of production hates it, so they probably try to cast people with irrepressible personalities to make it less likely they won’t get anything juicy at TC.

Two quick questions:

  1. What on earth would compel someone to wear a freaking necktie on Survivor?

  2. Do they all really take dumps in the water*?
    mmm
    *I guess I can see how it makes some sense, but then they swim, fish, and lounge around in it?

Answering Jeff’s questions is part of the game at tribal council. There are large parts of Tribal Council that don’t make it on air, and I don’t think it’s an option to stay silent or not answer questions. The key is giving enough entertaining answers to keep Jeff and the production happy without screwing yourself over or giving up your plans. Some players are much better at this than others.

Wheelz did say “vague, evasive answers”, so I don’t see much actual disagreement there. Production/Probst can’t force you to say something that will make you give up a secret or get you in hot water.

Agree it is was a strange episode. They went to tribal council 30 minutes into the episode, and I thought it was going to be a vote out, and the EoE players were going to do a fire challenge to see who gets back into the game because there was so much time.

Re: Ball Balance on the Bow. I do think the radius of the bow is greater (not as steep) on the edges vs the middle so that would make easier to keep from rolling, but closer to the end of the bows would be riskier.

I think production sets up areas for “aqua-dumps” that are far from the swimming areas and fishing areas, but there are a lot of animals excreting their wastes in the sea all over.

Giving boring answers is a great way to not get any screen time and to not be invited back as a returning player.

When they land on Survivor, their clothes are chosen by the show to give an impression of what they would wear normally. They don’t get to choose their own outfits - otherwise they’d be wearing much more sensible clothes.

Yes. Its been a subject of questions on podcasts. They poop in the water because its immediate clean-up possibilities, and they can clean their hands without having to go to the water to clean it up.

And remember - Fish don’t get out of the water to poop. There’s plenty of poop in there already. :wink:

I wonder why they chose to shoe horn two eliminations in one episode at this point?

And, with all the Returnees now on EoE, are they going to end it and admit one last person back into the game?

(I’d say kudos to War Dog for ousting the last two, except I think he just made it super-obvious who is running the show. So unless the returnee next week is Joe (or maybe Kelley) he’ll be the obvious out.)

Yeah, I don’t think some of the stuff Wardog said at Tribal was the savviest. Although it could be said to build a case for the jury. It’s a balancing act for sure.

I would prefer if they just had one TC per episode; but I think CBS requires that they have a certain number of episodes scheduled–and they purposely make that fewer than it would take to run it all out, to allow some slack in case people quit. This is where it would be better if it could somehow have elimination episodes be live like “Big Brother” (a show, just FTR, I watched for its first three or four seasons but have not watched since).

I’ve never tried to keep up with alliances and scheming – I just zone out during the whispered conversations of who’s trying to flip who. This probably makes me a shallow person…so be it. I watch the show for the challenges and the personality conflicts around camp and searching for HII and other weird, fun and interesting moments.

So this was the most boring episode in show history. Two endurance/balance challenges and alliance maneuvering. Literally, nothing else happened. Oh, wait … on Extinction Island (which was a terrible idea) we see someone find a clue that was cleverly hidden in plain sight.

Perhaps Wardog finds a way to make this work, but I’m pretty suspicious of his move against Wentworth. It seems to me that now he has absolutely nobody willing to protect him, and no idol. Now perhaps Wentworth would have made a move for him in the next episode, but I don’t see why Victoria, Rick, Ron, and Aurora would have any real loyalty towards him. I could very easily see them pull in Lauren (or even Gavin) and vote out Wardog immediately.

The fact that no one really leaves the show really has killed the pacing. Episodes are rushed because they have to spend a chunk of time on loser island showing them being bitter each episode.

I’m surprised Kelly spilled the beans about her and Lauren’s hidden idol as soon as she got to Extinction. She has no idea who will go back into the game or when.

Every season seems to have a player who should be a total no-brainer, neon-sign-over-their-head choice for everybody else to vote out, yet somehow they never do. This season it’s Wardog. I’d say he’s the odds-on favorite for the million at this point.

I was quite surprised nobody told Kelley about Wardog’s plan. I think that would have been a smart move for Victoria or Ron or Aurora (especially Aurora). They could have made an ally of Wentworth, gotten rid of a huge threat, and basically blown up the current social hierarchy. Now they’re just right back to being on the bottom.

Also surprised Kelley didn’t play her idol. I guess even experienced players can’t always sniff out when something is awry.

And a couple of people (contestants) have commented about the EoE players being bitter and complaining. Oh boo-hoo. Chose to play, chose to go EoE and can leave if they want, any time they want.

Thing is, endurance challenges are the most fair, keeps the strong males from winning them all.

I suppose you never camped on a beach without a bathroom, eh? Yeah, dumping in the water works great. You dont need toilet paper, cleans you right up.
Now, if a LOT of people do it, it causes nasty stuff, the the ocean is quite capable of absorbing and cleaning up a normal amount of land animal feces- after all, otter poop in the water, whales shit in the sea, and just about all land animals (except some humans) crap where it will run off into the ocean. Now, when you have great masses of humans living close together, that crap has to be cleaned up first. But until quite recently sewers drained right into the ocean, with no treatment.

And *some *amount of feces is fine, it’s ocean fertilizer. It’s when there’s too much for the ocean plankton to handle quickly or when it dumps too much nutrients in a small area- then it causes problems.

One more thing- Rick Devens got four balls into dimples before anyone else did, so that advantage did not necessarily give him the win.

Nm/dup