I dunno, I found Brains vs Brawn vs Beauty to be a pretty good season, at least at the outset - near the end the players seemed to kinda give up and let Tony win, though mainly that was because he had so many Idols. So, I’d say the main flaw was really the producers letting him get so many Idols - maybe it’s time to think of a new rule for those.
I think it really depends on the type of injury. The burns Skupin got were pretty dang bad. Gastro-intestinal stuff can be pretty dangerous and needs to be looked at. A lot of it seems to also come to “how bad could it be” since the test itself is what pulls the player out. Here, if Missy had left to get an X-ray, she would’ve been out, but they could also tell that at worst it was a sprain/fracture and she couldn’t make it any worse if she just immobilized it.
Also, other things I wanted to mention:
Natalie can forever win any argument with Nadiya now… “wait, which one of us won Survivor again?”
When watching the “twinies” on the Amazing Race I never thought for one second that I would be seeing a future Survivor winner.
I wonder how bad that kid feels for designing a challenge that injured a contestant.
No way. Reality shows are much, much cheaper to produce than traditional tv shows, because the “stars” are unpaid, they don’t have to hire a bevy of writers because it’s largely unscripted, and most of the action takes place in third world countries where the cost of living is cheap. I haven’t seen the budget for Survivor, but I’ll bet they can make an entire season for the cost of one episode of “Big Bang Theory.” Hell, even their food budget is cheap. I mean, how much can a bowl of rice per contestant per day cost?
I wouldn’t read anything into that. They’d have been numskulls to try and compete against Sunday night football, especially this close to playoffs.
Agreed. The only reason a season of Survivor is even in the same ballpark as an episode of Big Bang Theory is because Probst is an earner, with a reported salary of $2 million per season. (Listed as $4 million per year.)
$2.0 million Probst
$1.5 million prize money (roughly) 0.5 million everything else (total guess)
?.? million Mark Burnett
$4.0+ million per season
$1.00 million Kaley Cuoco
$1.00 million Jim Parsons
$1.00 million Johnny Galecki
$0.75 million Simon Helberg
$0.75 million Kunal Nayyar
$0.06 million Melissa Rauch 0.06 million Mayim Bialik
?.?? million Chuck Lorre
$4.62+ million per episode
I have no way to guess what Chuck Lorre and Mark Burnett end up earning on a per-episode or per-season basis.
I see the “demographic” tribes as a hook to get people interested in the show and watching the first few episodes. By they time they get to a merge or tribe reshuffle, they’re assuming that people have gotten to know the players and feel invested enough to continue watching. But you’re right; ultimately it doesn’t matter that much, and I wasn’t really taken with the class-warfare gimmick.
However, I would enjoy seeing a “Survivor: Sane vs. Crazy” edition, with a tribe of rational players like Yul, Yao-Man, Parvati, etc. against a tribe of whackos like Shambo and Former Federal Agent Phillip.
The finale was more fun than I expected it to be, mostly due to Natalie’s crazy play. She deserved to win out of the final five, as she was the only one who really played the game at all, so by default she should get the votes. But still, her “big moves” were simply not smart. Saving Jaclyn made no sense; she was in more danger of missing the final 3 than she otherwise would have been, and she would surely have gotten a unanimous vote had she kept with Missy and Baylor to the end.
But like I said, that made it more fun to watch. And I think she showed that she’s not quite as nasty a person as I thought she was before, so I guess I’m OK with her getting the money.
I too, was frustrated with Keith’s lack of game, though. It shouldn’t have been that difficult to convince Jaclyn and Missy to boot Natalie. But I guess it mattered little to them, as neither had a chance to win anyway, and they must have realized it on some level. And I didn’t know until the reunion that Keith was unfamiliar with Survivor prior to being on it. I guess it was Wes that talked him into it. Still, you’d think he’d watch some previous seasons or learn something about it to prepare.
Reed’s “Evil Stepmother” speech was spot on, and Missy’s reaction proved it. She rubbed me the wrong way from Day One. We all know people who constantly create drama in their own lives, then cast themselves as victims and then heroes for having to overcome said drama. Missy is that person. I don’t think I could stand to spend five minutes with her in the game or in real life. I’m not surprised she’s been divorced 3 times, but I am surprised she’s been married 3 times.
So, not my favorite season ever, but it was kind of fun at the end. I just hope they cast a more interesting group of contestants next time.
I could definitely go for this! It would be fun looking through the casts of the past picking out those tribes.
For filler during the shows themselves instead of footage of snakes and spiders crawling over stuff they could have shots of little kids shooting fish in a barrel.
Sane: Yul, Yao-Man, Parvati
Crazy: Shambo, Special Agent Phillip
New Noms
Crazy: Coach, Tony (from last season), Rupert, Sugar, Sue Hawke
Sane: Spencer (last season), Denise (winner a couple years ago), Kim (winner of Colton’s first season)
Personally, I think Yao-Man was more crazy than Sane. Might be hard to come with enough crazy women.
Tony crazy? I thought he was more sane, but maybe I’m misremembering.
Crazy: Boston Rob (maybe? He might be sane), Russell Hantz (or at least his brother or nephew that got kicked off of Big Brother; now THAT guy was crazy)
I disagree. Natalie’s overall strategy was to break up couples, since each couple is a de facto voting bloc. It is much easier to control people, and persuade people to vote the way you want, if they don’t have a partner who has to be consulted at every turn. Couples are also constantly talking things out with each other, reinforcing each other, and can come with ideas that that they might not think of alone.
I think a final four of Natalie, Keith, Missy, and Baylor would have been much more problematic for Natalie. Missy and Baylor are very close and are probably spending much of the day talking privately; I can easily see them convincing each other that Natalie must go. It would be easy for them to rope the passive Keith into that plan.
The final four of Natalie, Keith, Jaclyn, and Missy was much less dangerous, as Jaclyn and Missy aren’t close and Jaclyn had some lingering sense of gratitude to Natalie for the dramatic last-second save. It was less risky for Natalie to go to the final four with three people who had no particular connection to each other.
Sure, Natalie would probably have gotten a unanimous vote if she had gone to FTC with Missy and Baylor. But she knew she didn’t need a unanimous vote; all she needed to win was a plurality. Losing Jon’s and Baylor’s jury votes was an acceptable tradeoff for reduced risk at F4.
Rob is anything but crazy. The season he won he took the game by the throat and made it his bitch. He had it in the bag within a week. People don’t like him, but he uses that to his advantage. Having people thinking you are dumb is a great strategy. He has a degree in Psychology from Boston U. (College?)
If this concept were actually put into place, the sane people would wipe the floor with the crazies. It’d be awful. It would kill the show. Remember Utopia?
They didn’t spell it out, but she absolutely had to vote out Jaclyn. If she voted out Jaclyn and left a final four of Keith, Missy, Baylor and herself, then if Keith wins immunity, Natalie absolutely gets voted out (unless she was able to somehow convince Keith to create a deadlock for her, but there’s no reason to, especially if the tiebreaker is drawing rocks). By voting out Baylor, even if Keith had won immunity, Natalie still has a chance in the final four vote. Sure, in retrospect it seems like something to not worry about (since there was a puzzle involved) but Keith had dominated almost every non-puzzle challenge, so it wasn’t a risk she could really take.
And while we’re nominating people for Sane vs. Crazies, I don’t see how you leave NaOnka off the Crazy tribe, unless there’s a “no quitters” rule. It would certainly be interesting, though - having a tribe full of “Sanes” would create some interesting decisions early on in the alliances, especially if you pick a lot of deep strategic thinkers who are aware everyone else is thinking about moves as well. And of course the Crazy tribe would make its own fun.
In retrospect, I wonder why Josh and Reed (a hypocritical dick, IMHO) didn’t go the Jesus Route in trying to get Jon & Jaclyn – and Missy and Baylor – to get on the same page. There are some deleted scenes on YouTube where you see that Jon and Missy are all about their faith. (Suckers!)
Here is alink to someone’s favorite Ponderosa moments. Umm, Crazies!
I was surprised to hear that Josh and Reed were religious – it never came up on the show. (And if you have to go to deleted scenes to find something to bash people with, that’s a bit of a stretch.)
Some movie reminded me of an old-school Survivor challenge I wish they’d bring back:
A metal grate is fastened to lay across the surface of the water. (Think of a prison door laid on its side.) Everyone goes under the grate and sticks their head up between the bars to breathe. Then the tide comes in, eventually submerging the bars. Last one to bail wins.
