Unless I missed it, there were no spouses among the loved ones this time around, and I wondered if they did that on purpose to sort of level the playing field. I’ve thought in the past that the stakes were always uneven on the loved-one challenges. For instance, last night, if I’d seen my Mom or my brother standing there, and I knew I’d get to see them in another week, I think I’d get by with a wave and “Love ya, see you soon!” But if my wife is standing ten feet away from me, and I haven’t seen her in over a month, and I’m not allowed to run over and hug her for all I’m worth – man, that’s gonna hurt. Grant had his brother-in-law there. Nice to see him, I’m sure, but for me it doesn’t carry the same kind of emotional weight. YMMV.
(Then again, I’m not entirely sure if anybody but Rob has a spouse; the on-line bios are kind of vague.)
On another subject, I was on the fence with the whole Redemption Island thing, but I’m not anymore. It’s a gimmick that changes the basics of the game for the worse. What tipped the scales for me? It was when the three members of the jury filed in at Tribal Council, and it occured to me that there were three other potential jurors who weren’t there. A big part of being on the jury is you get to sit in on the TC’s. Except this season. That could have some effect on where the votes ultimately go, and I don’t like it.
I am so tired of hearing about God this season. People, please do not go on Survivor to convince God of what a great person you are. He does not care how you play this game. If that’s what you want to do, go feed starving orphans or build houses for tornado victims.
I’m not sure…supervenusfreak and I have been watching for “the gay one” since the season began, and we feel that it’s likely that if there IS a gay contestant this season, it’s going to be the one nobody expects…the consarn raidneck who’s turned his hickitude up to 11. So we were both making airquotes every time someone talked about Ralph’s “friend” or “buddy” last night.
According to wikipedia, the season was filmed in Aug-Sep 2010, and Amber gave birth in December 2010. So travel was probably precluded for her.
Speaking of which, anyone else roll their eyes at Rob’s little speech? (paraphrased) “I’ve been trying to win this game for ten years. I just want to make a better life for my family.” Look pal, your wife already won a million bucks. If your family is actually hurting, how about getting a job & bringing home a paycheck like the rest of us?
It was nice to see Matt get out-Jesused. He is really getting on my nerves. But there has to be a bloodbath soon, or they will be taking 5 to the reunion show.
Funny, because every time I see Grant, I think that he looks like Jesus, right down to the dreadlocks. Which begs the question: Has anyone seen Grant and Jesus in the same room?
Seriously, though, this has been a trainwreck of a season. They should call it “Rob and his flock of sheep” because none of them seem capable of thinking an independent thought. When Jeff asked who felt unsafe at last night’s tribal, no one raised their hand. Hello?! There’s your first clue. Get in the game!
And the whole RI thing has been a bust, IMO. It takes away the finality of being voted off and gives an unfair advantage to the RI winner because, should he go all the way, the jury will be comprised of his fellow bootees.
That speech pissed my husband off, too. I like Rob, but I would have understood it a lot better if he’d said look, I’ve played this game four times, and I’m not going to be satisfied until I finally win it.
At the beginning of the season, I recall Probst blogging something to the effect that he and the other producers were really pleased at how the Redemption Island “experiment” went, and that he hopes they bring it back in the future.
Let’s see:
The one person who’s re-entered the game was immediately voted back out.
RI resulted in a boring Pagong situation (they overestimated RI’s effect and didn’t do a tribe mix-up).
The dynamics of the jury system have been thrown off.
Lots of airtime dedicated to RI that ultimately means very little in the game.
So I can’t agree with Jeff’s assessment so far. I gave it a chance, but I’ve come to the opinion that voted out should mean voted out.
What’s really sad about the RI misfire is that it should have been obvious before they even greenlighted it that it wouldn’t be a fan favorite, given the reaction back in Pearl Islands when they brought back Girl Scout Lady.
Your last reason there is the one that’s irritating me the most. WAY too much airtime devoted to the duels, to ultimately rescue one person from being voted off. And there isn’t much added strategy or drama, so I just find it very boring.
Oh, and re Mike’s move: Normally I pull for contestants to be selfless when it comes to the “Only you, or everyone but you” rewards because I can see how it could sway votes in your favor. But, in this case, Mike had already been voted off. And Ometepe has proven time and time again that they only care about advancing their own tribe. So, assuming Mike makes it to the final 3, what has this move done except alienate his own tribemates, who were solidly in his pocket?
I can’t see any of the Zapatera jurors giving their vote to an Ometepe because of the ruthless way Ometepe played the game. They made no effort to make friends or share food or give them comfortable shelter. So why piss them off?
The Ometepe jurors, on the other hand, have a choice: 1) They’ll either vote for the Zapatera member because they’ll be bitter after being blind-sided by their own tribe; or 2) They’ll still be so loyal to their own tribe that they’d vote for their own no matter what. In neither case does Mike’s selflessness come into play.
Should he advance, he’s just given his potential competitors a huge psychological boost. Stupid.
I think RI would’ve been much better if they had ended it after the merge. This is probably the first season where the show actually got more boring after the merge.
What really sucks is you can just tell from how Jeff keeps talking about how great it is that they’re going to bring it back for at least one more season. They rarely introduce such a big change and only let it last one season.
I think Rob has quite the dilemma brewing. He badly needs to get rid of two people right now - Ashley and Grant. And once he gets rid of one of them, things are going to turn sour. Getting rid of Ashley first makes sense - you don’t want to keep the Ashley/Natalie friendship intact much longer. But then you run the risk of Grant getting immunity in something physical (I can’t believe Rob beat him this week - that was amazing). You vote out Grant next week, and you have Ashley/Natalie forming a pretty big voting bloc.
Phillip says he wants to face Rob at final council, but I think he’d much prefer to answer his questions from the jury.
Oh - and welcome to Survivor, Natalie. It’s nice that you’ve actually gotten some screen time…
Iraq War veteran guy… none of those people are going to care if you let them spend time with their loved ones. They just see this as a weakness. I liked your physical ability at the challenges, but you are a doofus.
I never liked Rob. Not the first time he played, and not the nth time. Give anyone enough chances, and he can win this game.
This is the worsts season I have watched. I’m barely interested. If this becomes the norm, I’m out.
He’s really trying to pander to everyone. Notice how he didn’t act all Christian until Matt came back into the game. I’m expecting him to start talking about farming and misspelling names in the next episode.
Oh, I don’t know about that. The editors might have just not shown it. It’s possible that they deliberately chose some Bible thumpers to see if they’d band together. There’s Matt, Mike, and that other chick who brought a Bible with her as her luxury item whose name I can’t recall.
Besides, his mother said, “That’s who Mike is.” so it wasn’t completely out of character.