Survivor Blood v Water season thread

[ekweizn]

@Lamar_Mundane

I haven’t thought this through, but instead of giving out clues only to hidden immunity idols, shake it up with some other goodies. One could be a “fast-forward” of sorts, where a poor swimmer could skip a challenge swimming leg and run or canoe a similar distance instead.

They have done at least two versions of this, which I find to be either unbalanced or patently unfair. The first is the “auction off an advantage in the next individual immunity challenge”, and the second was the “Medallion of Power” from Nicaragua.

[EllisDee]

@Czarcasm

1. Make it a $2 million team prize, and don’t let them officially pick their teams until day 15 or so. Once the team is picked, it stays picked until the end.
2. Co-joined twins Survivor. Still working out the kinks on this one.

When they did “pairs” on Big Brother, the houseguests chose their partners within 30 minutes of everybody first meeting on day 1. Then of course they brought in 3 returning pairs; the Survivor analog would be like Boston Rob & Amber, and maybe (now) Tyson & Gervaise. Or how about Parvati and either Hot Amanda or Russell Hantz? heh.

Anyway, the way it worked was you voted out the pair. So two people got the boot each eviction. That cast was huge. By the time they got to the Big Brother equivalent of the merge the pairs were dissolved and it went back to normal play.

[magnusblitz]

@Ethilrist

Tyson only mentioned once or twice one of his key strategies for staying strong: eat all the time. Prior to the mixup, whenever he & Gervase went to gather coconuts they’d eat some themselves before going back to camp, and after the mixup, he found himself in a tribe of noobs who followed his lead and cooked two or three times as much rice for any meal as previous seasons have. That helped him (in addition to being out with a shoulder injury for a couple weeks) keep his strength up and, if that final immunity challenge was any indication, it worked really well for him, Gervase and Monica. I’m wondering if they’re going to try to find a way to keep people from doing this in the future, but then they’re likely to end up with starving players again if it doesn’t work out.

Probst made an interesting comment during the after show that it was in some ways the “easiest Survivor” they’ve done. I don’t disagree. I think the producers have realized that people are more interested in the challenges/votes/strategy than watching people sit around a beach literally trying to survive. Obviously the aren’t going to give the players banquets for free every day (so they can use the food as reward), but I don’t think they’re going to starve people anymore.

[notfrommensa]

Yes, I don’t want to see them starving and they should be given somewhat appropriate clothes for the situation. Long sleeve shirts and long pants plus shorts and two pairs of shoes. And rice and beans.

Rather see them covered up than pixellated as the pixelation is just distracting.

[PunditLisa]

@magnusblitz

Probst made an interesting comment during the after show that it was in some ways the “easiest Survivor” they’ve done.

He also said that they enjoyed the best weather. They obviously had really high heat (115F+ in the day), but that also probably meant that they had moderate weather at night. But Probst also mentioned the lack of torrential rain, which packs a double blow because not only are they wet, but it prevents them from keeping a fire going (unless they’re lucky to find a cave).

I do wonder if the producers aren’t taking more seriously the fact that one of the European Survivors died earlier this year, which I’m sure was devastating to them both from a human AND business standpoint. Even though it was really early in the game, IIRC, I think it might have pushed them to modify the austerity of the conditions to ensure that tragedy didn’t strike twice. One person dying = fluke. Two people dying = trend.