That’s just plain against the whole concept of Survivor. You never are forced to leave the game (excluding medical) unless you are voted out.
It could definitely go down that way. Unless the tribes are a total snore I don’t think they’ll reintroduce a RI contestant before the merge.
The merge is usually quite an event, it’s already dramatic without the reintroduction of the RI resident. For that reason alone I wonder if they’ll pick a different insertion point.
The RI person is at a serious disadvantage alliance-wise. The shake-up at the merge might be the only realistic chance for them to reintegrate. Survivors who were threatening enough to be voted out and who then won duels at RI would be huge targets, wouldn’t they?
I suppose it’ll all depend on who the RI contestant is and how lopsided the alliances become. In any case I’m really enjoying this season. I was happy to see Russell get voted off but I must admit that I was hoping to see him pull something clever out of his scary armpits at the last second.
For better television from the viewer’s perspective:
What if the RI challenge were shown towards the end of the broadcast right after the TC decision instead of at the beginning?
How about having the RI challenge be played out the same evening as the TC? The voted out member walks towards RI with his/her extinguished torch, the previous member waiting there, they have the challenge and the winner gets to relight their torch and stays.
What if only the two members of the winning tribe (of the immunity challenge) and not the losing tribe are allowed to witness the RI challenge?
Any thoughts?
Better, but it still diminishes the Tribal Council and pushes it to too early in the show.
If they show was 90 minutes, they’d have room for it. As is, they need to eliminate it. I hope it is a one season thing.
We’ve only seen one Redemption Island challenge…
I want to see Squeaky Fromme voted off next and I want her to have to fight Russell in some kind of RI duel. That is good television.
I’ve been thinking that the regular contestants wouldn’t be watching the RI challenge, but then remembered that these people do nothing for most of the day, and they’d love the entertainment. And from a game producer’s standpoint, it adds another great in-camp strategizing element while two members of the tribe have to leave for a few hours (and gives those two people time to chit-chat at length as well).
Yeah, I think people are being a bit too quick to judge on this.
Future RI challenges will likely not take quite as much screen time because the basic explanations can be skipped. It’s not obvious if the tribes will continue to send observers after this first one. Even if they do, I can’t see the editors devoting much screen time to drawing the stones of the bag to select the observers.
On the other hand, we’ve already seen a hint with Rob’s worries about Matt returning of the general level of paranoia that could arise from RI, particularly if the tribes no longer get to observe the RI challenges. Imagine going through several tribal council eliminations and then having no idea just who might be left out at RI waiting to return. This could turn out to be a really interesting element to the social game.
Naw. She’d fall to her knees, bow her head respectfully, and do nothing while he wins the challenge.
Yes , we have only seen one RI challenge. People were annoyed in the first episode when Probst would go into commercial break with the ‘what if’ RI scenarios (Jane and Shambo etc.) we haven’t seen those since episode 1.
I want her and the other one to carve Xs in their foreheads or at least get sympathy armpit blisters.
Amen. Good riddance, Russel. Please lose your duel.
I think Rooster should have confided in a few of his tribemates that he had the HII, and not risked the tie vote. Otherwise, I’m just happy to see Russel voted out. That’s all. He’s poison to the tribe, and I don’t blame them for throwing the challenge to get rid of him.
I’m rooting for Russell to sweep RI and come back in. He’ll beat Matt for sure, at least. Poor boy’s already been smacked down by his idol, Rob. Then to see Russell come into RI, he’s gotta feel like the “fans” from “fans vs. favorites,” an amateur amongst the pros. And though Russell isn’t a challenge-monster, he does hold his own when he needs to.
Throwing the challenge at this stage of the game seems like a mistake, even to get rid of a so-called cancer or poison player. Especially when the all-important tarp is at stake.
I agree that Russell goofed in demanding Julie to vote for Ralph. If he’d truly learned anything from his past seasons, he would’ve let her pick, not only to solidify her loyalty, but to make use of her inside info into the alliance of 6. She should know who the lynchpin is. Yes, she’d be trading #6 in a 6-3 for #4 in a 5-4, but Russell’s got a proven record of shaking things up and getting a small alliance through. Let’s face it, there’s no way he is winning this season. Too hated, and the jealousy factor of him being on his 3rd try is too high. Rob might have a slim chance of overcoming that, but only because he’s not as abrasive as Russell. So it seems to make sense to drag Russell to the end or close to it. Stephenie may be batshit crazy in her Russell-fangirl-ism, but she’s got an excellent point in that he was useful to latch on to.
Absolutely loved Rob getting the idol clue from right under FFA?'s butt. hilarious. I like Rob more and more each episode. Also loved his analysis of the vague clue. “Might as well say ‘The idol is… somewhere’” LOL.
I missed the first week’s episode, but how many HHIs are there anyway? Rooster found the hidden one on his tribe, and that woman on Rob’s tribe had (and played) one. Where did she get it? And there’s still another one out there for Rob to find?
She found it inside a tree I think. She was looking everywhere she could think of even though she didn’t have a clue, and got lucky.
It’s standard for the producers to hide another HHI after one is played, so there should be another one to be found at Rob’s tribe.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a third on Redemption Island, too.
I would be. They never gave Francesca (or, so far, Matt) a clue. I think that would make more trouble for Burnett than he’s ready to take on, legally…it would demonstrate some amount of favoritism if the later RI people (like, say, Russell) were given a clue and the first couple weren’t.
One scenario that may be legally balanced would be if they DID hide an HII on RI, but weren’t giving out clues to anyone. Or even letting them know it was there. I think giving the ultimate RI winner a chance to have an HII is a little unbalanced, though.
All they had to do was also hide the clue. Just because they haven’t found anything doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. (But I’d be surprised as well.)
It would also be more likely than not that such an idol would never even come into play; it would need to happen to be in the possession of the last player standing to do anybody any good.
Correct me if I’m wrong – the rule of thumb in the past, I think, is that if an idol gets played, it gets re-hidden. But if it leaves in somebody’s pocket, it’s gone for good. Not that they couldn’t change that up at any time, I suppose. Still, the logistics of a RI HII just don’t make a lot of sense.
Eh… Survivor is very much produced on the fly, and often open to changes in the game at the producers’ discretion. Especially given medical evacuations, quitters, and the like, they’ll often cancel challenges/TC’s or add extra TC’s. They deliberately don’t reveal all the rules to the contestants, like when the redeemee(s) will return, when the merge is, whether it’s a final 2 or final 3, etc. Past idols have been put in (or at least announced) after people have already left the game. Any of these things could be seen as favoritism, not to mention the choice and timing of challenges (strength vs. speed vs. balance vs. puzzle) how would this be any different?
I don’t think there’s an idol on RI either, but what I meant was that I wouldn’t be too surprised if there was.