Abi-Normal was also super fast to the bench to sit out this last challenge. I hope somebody finds her not-so-well-hidden immunity idol. “Oh look, a freshly dug up spot 3” from the trail! What could this be?"
Or even better her partner dude moves it.
Lalala, what do you mean it’s not where you buried it, did you lose it?
You can’t take somebody else’s HII unless they give it to you.
I wonder if the act of hiding it by burying it in the sand relinquishes “ownership” of it? My guess is no, it does not. The rule is there so you can’t just rifle through the idol-holder’s bag and steal it from them. Once you go bury it on the beach, though, it’s starting to get into a gray area.
I imagine if you just went through everyone’s stuff every day until you found one and then chucked it into the ocean the producers might step in. Not postive on that, but if they would, then you can’t mess with somebody’s buried idol either.
Yeah, but if you saw somebody dig an idol out of a hollow tree, you could just say you put it there and it’d be yours.
I think they’d have to make some distinction between an idol being in close proximity to a contestant’s personal stuff and being “hidden” in the area. Abi-Normal doesn’t have a stake on that piece of dirt, if she’d hidden it in a tree stump and somebody else looked in that tree stump and found it, they’d think they were the original finders, no?
Abi is crazy AND annoying. And playing way too hard, too soon (except in the challenges, of course). It didn’t look like she even consulted with her teammates. She just said, I twisted my knee, I’m sitting out. Jerk.
RC might look like a raccoon at times, but she was awesome at that challenge. I couldn’t believe she kept going out.
I just found this:
Colton wrote:
"I can answer this.
No, he can’t take it. I had hidden my idol in Samoa, and Bill dug it up and threw it out to sea. I didn’t know who did it at first, and I threw a fit. Production basically pulled EVERYONE aside one by one and went on a scavenger hunt to find it. I thought MIKE had taken it, but he swore on his mom’s life it wasn’t him and then I turned my sights on Bill. Leif, ever the squealer (lol), told me he saw Bill throw something way into the ocean. At that point production was questioning Bill, and then about 30 minutes later production returned with me my idol. So I think once you have it it’s YOURS unless you specifically say, “I want to give it to [Survivor]”
Another thing is when I was medically removed I didn’t have the idol on me. They had to ask me who I wanted to give it to. I didn’t even think about the idol until Jeff asked me about it and then a member of production brought it over. I think if it could be taken they would’ve just removed me and left it until someone said, “Oh my God! I can take this for mine now.”
(When Bill threw my idol in the ocean is when I started hating him, but we were told it couldn’t be discussed on camera and everyone was to act like it never happened because it’s against the rules to TAKE someone’s idol no matter where it is.)"
Here’s a link to the ongoing thread: Survivor Sucks forums
I wonder if the cameramen are instructed to tell the contestants to put an idol back if it’s been previously found, or what?
Would have made for an interesting strategy, just tell everyone you had found the idol and if they happened across it to please return it to you.
I think it’s pretty obvious how the Idol ownership works, if you just stop to consider that the cast is surrounded by the production team. They try to maintain an illusion that the contestants are alone on the beach, but that’s not the reality.
So when someone finds the idol, they are either filmed on camera by a production member, or they have to inform production so new footage of the idol’s discovery can be shot, i.e. a re-enactment.
Once production is informed, they note the Idol ownership. Transference of ownership again requires on-camera footage and again, production knows exactly who is the new owner.
The only time you can take ownership of the hidden idol by random searching is when it has not been found yet by anyone.
Sort of makes it hard to maintain the illusion of keeping idol ownership secret, “Idol discovery re-enactment, TAKE THREE! Everybody remember now, you are not supposed to know X has this idol, so play along if the camera is on you - you have no idea if X has the idol. Wink wink”.
I still think I’d be a bit pissed if I was digging around and legitimately thought I’d found the idol, only to be told that I hadn’t actually found the idol.
I wondered about that too… I guess they could mask it as a Confessional.
Interesting stuff from Colton. Has anybody written a behind-the-scenes tell-all about Survivor? If not, why not?
Is Mike Skupin the Les Nesman of Survivor?
Almost certainly because of non-disclosure agreements protecting Survivor’s trade secrets.
(“Trade secrets” is the reason Big Brother contestants aren’t allowed to talk about production.)
However, it does play heavily into one of the big drums Probst keeps beating: Stronger tribes are winning tribes. Plus, this kind of “little tribe that couldn’t” death spiral makes for GREAT TV. Remember the season with the tribe that went down to one person? That was awesome. And, yes, they did make the other tribe trim down to two competitors for the last challenge.
I liked how the black guy on Skupin’s team is calling him out as cursed… “I jumped in the water face-first and had no problem; he jumped in and got a face full of glass.”