Part of the Survivor show involves teams going through an obstacle course and performing tasks along the way. There are usually two courses for the two teams and each team completes one course. Generally, the teams do not get to pick which course they will use. The producers or crew make that decision. So team A must go on course A and team B must go on course B. Sometimes this is because course A will have team A’s colors and the same with course B. The courses are not picked randomly.
The problem here is that the courses are not exactly identical. They are made to look rustic and are usually constructed with natural logs, weathered wood, rope, etc. Because of the inherent variability of the construction material, one course will certainly be “harder” and one course will be “easier”. It would be practically impossible to make sure all balance beams were exactly as stable, that all knots were tied with identical tension, that all gripping surfaces were identical, etc.
In addition to the construction difficulties, there is the chance of subconsciously making one course harder than the other. For example, if a challenge involved untying knots, it would be very easy for a crew member to make the knots for the men’s team tighter than for the women’s team. He might not even realize he was doing it. But the men would have a harder time getting through the challenge.
So the problem on Survivor is that the courses are not equal and are not picked randomly. It would be trivial for the producers or crew to bias the results. How does Survivor get away with this?
Of course, the solution would be that the teams flip a coin to determine who goes on which course. Then there would be no real chance for the crew or producers to influence who has an easier or harder time in the challenge.
Regarding your construction issue, I do not understand why the cumulative effects of construction inequities would consistently result in one course being easier and the other harder? Wouldn’t it be more likely that, say, the balance beam on course A would be easier, but the “gripping surface” on B was easier? And if a number of knots are involved, why would all of the knots on one course be significantly different than ALL of the knots on the other? Finally, it is not necessarily clear to me that various factors would consistently favor one team or the other. One guy might do better on skinny smoth balance beams, another might do better on fat bumpy ones.
What I’m saying here is that the choce is not arbitrary. That is, team A shows up and the producer says they will use the course specially constructed for team A. Team B uses the course specially constructed for team B. They don’t pick the course randomly.
A harder course would make it harder for that team to win and would be likely to favor the other team to win. Although victory is not assured since a much stronger team could overcome the additional difficulty.
Aren’t you assuming somthing you don’t actually know - that the courses are built specifically for use by a certain team?
Why would the Survivor producers decide ahead of time which team is using which course? And why would they tell the construction teams? This would only increase the chances of consciously or subconsciously biasing the show’s outcome. (and there are much more effective ways to do that if they wanted to.)
As they’ve already been sued at least once for unfairly rigging the show, I’d bet they build 2 roughly equal courses, and then decide later which team runs which course.
No, I have seen on several of the last challenges that one course is color coded for one team, and the other for the other tribe. This seems to be standard in this season. I think Jeff is trying to give the women a slight edge without actually cheating. His refereeing also seems to favour the underdog tribe slightly.
Note also- when he reads the votes, it is unlikely that they will come out in that “one vote for A, one vote for B, one vote for A, etc” kind of order. Some things are done to add drama.
Well, one reason is that you don’t have just one guy making both courses. Crews will be working on the whole thing. So you might have two different people tying the knots for the courses. Perhaps the guy on course A is much stronger and ties the knots much tighter than the person on course B. Or the person installing the balance beam on course A gives it a few extra wacks in the ground making it more stable than the one on course B.
It could be that the construction differences on a course all work out so that person X can complete either course in the same amount of time, but I would think that would be a rare occurance.
The big issue with the way Survivor does it now is that they are exposing themselves to a huge liability if one team says they are being manipulated to lose. If the Blue team has to use the Blue course and they have trouble untying the knots, cutting the ropes, crossing the beam and lose the challenge, they could say they were deliberately made to lose by the producers since the producers told them to use that specific course.
To be honest, I’m not sure why the courses need to be absolutely and completely even.
The teams certainly never are. Even with their best intent, the teams are hardly even and the human element can also lead a stronger team to be weaker the following week.
On one hand, I understand what you are speculating, but in the context of all the variables it seems insignificant to me.
I can’t remember all the challenges, but of the 4 shows this season, these are the ones I can remember that that were pre-selected. The women are the yellow team and the men are the blue team. Not all courses are color coded so I don’t know if every challenge would have this issue.
Pick up colored puzzle pieces scattered about (color corresonds to team color).
Escape from a cage tied with colored rope (rope color corresponds to team color). Untie lots of knots and cut rope with machette tied to the cage. This is what actually got me wondering since the men’s machette did not reach the last rope they had to cut. The chain attached to the handle was too short. The men had to rub the rope against the blade whereas the women could swing the blade and chop through the rope.
Burn ropes to release banner with your team name. (Course corresponded to team name).
Catch fish. Each team got a set of equipment and was sent to different locations to fish. There was a blue set of equipment and a yellow set of equipment. I think where they were sent to fish was predetermined by team color.
And there are other examples in the other series.
I don’t know that the producers are doing anything on purpose, but the fact that the crew has to setup a specific challenge for the blue team and a specific challenge for the yellow team means that bias could be introduced, even if it is unintentional.
It’s common knowledge that when Probst goes to “tally the votes,” he and someone on the production staff read throught them, and then put them in order to maximize the drama. Previous contestants have said it takes about 30-40 minutes for him to come back with the jar and read the votes.
Not a big deal, IMO.
I read on another board that they also have “rehearsals” of some of the harder games, like the obstacle courses, so they can get a feel of what it’s like.
They let them run through it once or twice, and then do it “live” for the cameras.
I don’t think they need to covertly favour one tribe over another with the construction of the courses - they seem to do it even more obviously with the type of challenges set.
For instance, in the current series, the guys a going terribly, winning I think, one challenge in the first three episodes. In fact, the only thing they really excel at, and the one thing that the girls are awful at are basic survival skills.
Hey, surprise, surprise, come episode four, both challenges are based around a survival skill (starting a fire and fishing).
So yeah, the challenges often seem to be rigged somewhat, usually to favour the underdog. That’s just part of the game, and the contestants just have to take what’s given to them. It’s still great TV.
Yeah, the easy non-physical challenges seem to come just in time to save a weak team from domination. Still “rigged” seems a bit much. Biased a bit towards the underdogs is probably fair.
Unfortunately, this can lead to weeks and weeks of stupid Survivor Puzzle Time.
I thought last week’s challenges were excellent, as they actually focused on real survival skills, not stupid jigsaw puzzles.
Nah, the contests aren’t rigged…the contestants are.
Let’s face it, no matter how great/pathetic they are in real life, there’s no telling how they’re going to cope with living in an unmerciful wilderness with meager rations and no shelter. And they have to compete under these conditions, not a simple task by any means.
Jaburu was able to overcome their hostilites to get off to a good start. Even so, they only won because someone or other from Tambaqui kept screwing up; nb. especially the balance beam disaster, where TWO tribemates (who are now out, incidentally) blew it for the whole tribe. And of course there was that stupid no-skill flip-of-a-damn-coin guessing game (I’m sorry, but I do not want a reward challenge to boil down to pure luck). Tambaqui actually seemed more focused with the weakest members out, and it should come as no surprise that a decisive win in the reward challenge (where they had to come from behind, remember) lit a fire under them and spurred them to clean up in immunity as well.
In short: Human quirks. Overconfidence. Failings or weaknesses that crop up at the worse time. Streaks. Confidence. Motivation. The sheer weirdness of ordinary Americans voluntarily living in miserable conditions. All plenty sufficient to cause big shifts and surprise outcomes without any input from the producers.
a> There is no sort of quality control. (A team that goes through the course to ensure its fairness)
b> There is in fact no coin flip, or some other arbitrary way of assigning courses.
c> The producers even give a rip about who wins.
My point is, we see an edited show. Of course they don’t show us a stupid coin flip before every event. That would get tedious, see “Is that your final answer?” And even if they could rig it, why would they? They have no idea of what an outcome is going to have on the game in general. The human drama of it all is what they are going after… win/lose or draw.
