I have to disagree with those who fault the Ulongs for not having a “back-up” plan. Anticipating that the Korors would be given an opportunity to vote for an Ulong imunity would have been virtually impossible. And making a back-up choice just for general principle would be foolhardy. What would a player do; go around and tell people, “hey, just in case we don’t get to vote Ibrahim out for some reason, we should vote out James instead.” It’s one thing to make an enemy out of somone you think will be gone in a few hours; it’s ridiculous to single someone out if you think they’re going to be sticking around. That was the mistake the Gang of Four made in Marquesas; making the pecking order too explicit. You don’t want the doomed players to know they’re in danger until it’s too late for them to do anything about it.
Actually, if I were Coby I’d probably have instantly informed and alligned with Tom and Ian and take out Gregg now, because he’s going to be too powerful soon. I think Tom & Ian would be more honorable, and I think Jen would be more lost without Gregg than vice versa.
I picked up on that, too. He never said, "… tonight… ". He said, “There’s no merge.” Period. It was subtle, but he can be evil like that. Hee hee.
I wonder if we don’t see many Ian confessionals because he knows exactly where he stands, and how everybody else sees him, and TPTB don’t want to give too much away. They like to try to keep a few secrets up their sleeves. Although he is obviously having a helluva time, he seems pretty sharp and aware, and I wouldn’t doubt that he’s always got his mind in the game. Would come as no surprise to me if he were already aware of the wheeling and dealing that Gregg is trying to do. Watch out for those wiry guys.
Nerds always know more than you give them credit for. It’s why we love them. 
Exactly. It’s why I married one. Heaven knows it wasn’t for money …
I think Coby probably feels like he has a better shot at winning from Final Four if he’s with Gregg/Jen/Janu that with Ian/Tom/??. I think Gregg also thinks his chances are better against the first group. Who really want to face Tom/Ian in an endurance challenge? For that matter, who would want to try to get jury votes against such strong, likeable people?
I’d love to see a “no merge” Survivor, too, but how would it work when the Ulongs get down to two people? Let the Korors just vote off an Ulong? Or maybe have a special one-on-one challenge for the two Ulongs, loser goes home?
Of course, after that it could be really interesting with a tribe of one. If the producers stuck to the same general concept for the challenges, it would mean that Koror would basically have to pick one member to go against the sole Ulong. If the Ulong wins, the Korors go the tribal and vote someone off, same as usual. If Koror wins, the remaining Ulong goes home, and then it’s a defacto “merge” and we’re onto the individual game. But if the Ulong could miraculously keep winning, and whittle the Korors down to three . . . Then there’d have to be a merge, and the poor Ulong’s only chance would be to win immunity (the three Korors would certainly stick together, barring that). So it would be theorectically possible, but a real long shot for that last Ulong. Still, could be really interesting to watch, though!
I have to so disagree with you! This was far and away the single best episode of Survivor ever, and I’ve seen every single episode of every season!
The best moment was when Jeff told the Korors they got to vote immunity for an Ulong! Absolutely priceless! As another poster said, I immediately assumed they’d all vote for Ibrahim; that just seemed the only right thing to do: Doubly-screw the other team by forcing them to keep someone they wanted to get rid of, and to get rid of someone they’d rather keep. Not to even mention the almost certain further discord that would ensue from the resentment of Ibrahim by the other Ulongs. I was agast that so many of the Korors didn’t vote that way! Were they just being stupidly charitable, or were they stupidly not paying attention, or were they just stupid? In any case, I loved that they got to mess with the Ulong’s plans.
This show has gotten so damned stagnant, so predictable; the alliances are formed, the plans are made, the plans are carried out, ho hum, big deal. They need things like this that truly shake things up, that give players a true opportunity to really mess up other players’ plans! Unpredicability is what keeps this show interesting.
Having the Korors eat in front of the Ulongs was deliciously evil! And not just eat, but they didn’t reveal the food until the Ulongs came in, making sure that they’d experience all the “ooos” and “ahhhs” from the eaters. Evil, yes, but highly entertaining!
And the look on tatoo girl’s face throughout the council! Man, I would have paid to see that! Such a great combination of being totally pissed off, disappointed, disgusted, beaten, and did I mention pissed? And that she ended up getting the boot, after having gotten kind of smug about having “proved her worth”, was again just priceless!
My question for speculation: I’ve always wondered if the producers really go into a season with everything (like the sequence of challenges) rigidly in place, or if they make some “adjustments” along the way, based on what’s happening, whether the tribe’s are getting really imbalanced, etc. This episode really set off my detector on that. I can’t help but think that the whole idea was cooked up on the fly in response to Ulong being so far behind. As another poster pointed out, if Koror had not been forced to boot a member, the 9-to-4 would have forced a change to the “can’t sit out the same person in back-to-back challenges” rule anyway.
So I can imagine Probst and Burnett scratching their heads, wondering how to accout for that possibility, and someone getting the bright idea of just having both tribes vote someone off, no matter what. But then, you need some kind of a reward for one tribe, so let’s see . . . Ah, we could let them watch the other tribe’s council, possibly getting valuable information. And then the absolutely brilliant idea of letting the winning tribe give one member of the loser tribe immunity, hopefully using what they’ve just heard to really mess up the other tribe’s plans!
It’s harder to imagine, though still quite possible, that they thought that up before the season started, not knowing what the team balance would be at this point in the game.
Yes, that was deliciously evil! And it wasn’t just stew and root beer - there were biscuits, too! Ian was swooning over the biscuits! And several others commented loudly that “Oh, my God, there’s biscuits, too!” They just couldn’t help themselves. :evil smilie:
I’ve often wondered the same thing. Who could have expected such an unbalanced start, with one team losing every single IC? That’s never happened before. I’m sure the challenges are laid out beforehand (with harder, more physical stuff at the beginning, and easier stuff and puzzles at the end), but I think they must be willing to change stuff “on the fly” like you said, especially for situations like last night. If Koror had lost a couple of ICs, and the tribes were more evenly-numbered, I doubt we would have seen the show as it played out last night.
How was this any different from when a tribe loses an immunity challenge? I mean, suppose that this episode had had a regular immunity challenge and Koror had lost. Willard’s fate would have been just as sealed, he would have had just as little control over his fate, he would have been just as doomed from the moment they lost the challenge, the outcome would have been just as moot. The only difference with this episode is that we were spared the obligatory shots of the Korors moaning about losing a challenge. They still had time back at camp, knowing that they were going to have to vote someone off. Willard had time to make his play, if he’d had any play to make.
I don’t see any unfairness at all, between Jeff saying, “You’re going to have to vote someone off”, and Jeff saying, “You lost the immunity challenge, you’re going to have to vote someone off.”
But, that’s his job, to stir things up. I mean, is there any doubt that Jeff and/or staff members carefully go over the tapes of the two or three days before tribal, and then Jeff’s questions are carefully crafted, based on what has happened and what the various tribe members have said? It’s totally clear that his questions are designed to put people on the spot, to give them an “opportunity” to say something incriminating in front of the other tribe members that they’ve already said in a private interview. Or, in some rare cases, to skillfully deflect Jeff’s question into something that makes the questionee look better.
Compare Jeff’s questions in tribal from the first few seasons to those of later seasons. In the first few it, was “How’s it going? How are you coping with the hunger? Do the bug bites hurt?” and other innocuous crap. More and more in the later seasons his purpose at tribal is to stick the paddle deep into the stew and stir hard. I for one think it’s exactly the right thing for him to do. Like I said in another post, too much of the recent Survivor series have been yawn-fests. Jeff’s tribal questions at least provide some amusement and interest and the occasional “Omigod, did the player really shoot themselves in the foot like that?” moments. Very often, the tribal is the most interesting five minutes in an otherwise boring hour, and due squarely to Jeff’s pointed questioning.
OK … I am fascinated by how this show works, so I have been checking some of the spoiler sites. Not for actual spoilers, mind you, but any kind of deep background info I can find. (I have seriously not checked any bootlists or speculation or anything like that until after the episodes have aired.) This is not really a spoiler, but it does link to a site with spoiler info, so I will box my comments.
The site makes reference to a preview special that allegedly aired in the L.A. area just before the season started (I am near Philly, so I don’t know for sure). Apparently that special included pictures of a “challenge board” that sort of outlined some of the challenges they wanted to use, rewards, possible timeline, etc. Some of the challenges that we have already seen appear in different orders, or with different rewards. This episode’s situation appeared on the board with the (once) cryptic explanation “vote for other tribe @ TC.” So, clearly they planned for this, but they had no idea how it would actually turn out.
Fascinating stuff, this. I wonder sometimes why I am not using my degree in Writing for Television. Oh, wait. Because I have a soul.
Hijack, but I didn’t know until recently that Jeff Probst lives with Julie Berry from Season 5.
The difference, as I see it, is that it was a fixed result. The outcome of the challenge had no effect on the results. So even if Willard had been doing nothing more than riding on the coattails of his teammates up until then, he was doomed. Prior to this, he admittedly had been staying in the game for the most part because of good luck. But this time, nothing was going to help him.
I think it’s pretty clear that the producers do adjust things as the series are running. They don’t actually “fix” the challenges so one tribe will be guaranteed a win, but they will create opportunities for a faltering tribe to regain its balance. But even when a tribe is given an opportunity to save itself, it still has to reach out and seize the opportunity.
Hehe…yeah, supervenusfreak and I were talking about the online talkback show Survivor is running this year, hosted by Jenna Morasca (currently dating Ethan Zohn), and wondering why Peachy Probst couldn’t get his girlfriend the gig instead…
And I just wanted to note, relevant to nothing, really, that the program we use at work to enter aid applications is defaulted to Pennsylvania in the address bar, but when I reflexively hit “P” to put Pennsylvania in (unnecessarily), the next location to come up is “Palau”.
It’s given me several private chuckle moments since this season started…
… dude… she lost…
Well, yeah, but you’d think Probst would have SOME pull…
Then again, maybe Phil Koegan is just waiting in the wings, looking to fill in some of the rare free time in his work schedule.