Survivor Seaon 33 Starts Tonight (Also RE: TAR)

Well, next season could be awesome. Those are some amazing competitors. I wonder who the rest of the cast is? Hopefully they are equally good players or the ones that they showed will be voted out immediately.

Good ending to a good season, though the final TC was predictable. The final four vote between Adam and David was basically deciding who won. I really didn’t see any way that Adam could lose against Ken and Hannah - Ken was seen as a bit of a weirdo and stick in the mud, and Hannah was too under the radar (I think she actually did a good job of playing both sides, but completely failed at TC to show how she did so). The issue of whether Adam would bring up his mom and would that influence votes came up, and I figured he would bring it up and it wouldn’t matter in the end. Even if you think he was doing it for sympathy (and in his case, I really don’t think he was, I got the impression it really did drive him the whole way through), Ken and Hannah were so unimpressive that it wouldn’t’ve swung my vote away from Adam.

BTW, for those who want spoilers, here’s the supposed list of S34 competitors: Season 34 Cast - Inside Survivor

Adam’s mom may have gotten him the sweep, but he definitely won on his own.

Normally I skip through the reunion show. Adam’s story about his mother’s death started out awfully glurgy, but when he said (paraphrasing) “I know this is a beautiful story, but it’s also my life.” I nearly lost it myself.

Here is a spoiler for next season’s cast.

Some of them, I would not call “Game Changers”. One of them never even to Tribal Council


There sure are a lot of commercials in the Reunion show. I think they interrupted the commercials twice by saying they will be right back to the reunion. At least “Cousin It” didn’t show up with her PETA infomercial and there was no questions from the audience or pimping of other CBS shows.

There’s no way Sandra threepeats, right?

I mean surely she will be the first to go, right?

I would vote her out on the boat trip to the island.

sploosh
Jeff: Where’s Sandra?
BKB: beep I do not know. She was here a minute ago. beep

I really want to know how final tribal would have gone if David and Adam both somehow made it. I wanted Jeff to do the “Who would you vote for?” question, but considering the circumstances it was probably best to avoid it.

David’s fake idol really turned the game. I think Jay would have been the victor, if he’d not found the fake idol and relaxed. I’d really rather Jay had won, but overall, this was a great season.

Oh yeah, that was the best fake idol play since that arrogant jerk Randy in Gabon. I love how Jeff always tosses the fake into the fire as well.

I don’t think the fake idol changed the game all that much. Jay would have still forgotten to cover up the combination in the Immunity Challenge and lost therefore lost the challenge.

After all the gratuitous nature photos of the BATS, it was nice to go full circle with a picture puzzle of an upside bats. Its little things like that make me appreciate the Survivor production.

+1

I really wonder if Jay lost because he didn’t cover the combo. Dave, who won, had to go back multiple times to look at because he was just so out of it. I wonder if he would have gotten it faster if he just tried different combos. Speaking of which, I don’t like the combo challenges. Too much luck.

If he hadn’t found the fake idol, he would have kept looking until he found a REAL idol. If his idol was real, he wouldn’t have gone home that night.

Yeah, they made way too much of that. There were only 6 combinations to try, and as you pointed out Dave was the last one (or 2nd to last) to solve it. Plus Jay’s entire puzzle fell as he was close to finishing. I don’t think you can state with any certainty that he would have won without his mistake.

Ciera, Cirie, Sarah, and Sierra? Oy.

I think this has been my favorite season and I hope the producers get that you don’t need a Hantz to hate on for the season to be memorable, just great game play throughout. If Julie (Asianatrix) or that fat guy who thought he was having a heart attack had lasted through the entire season it would have been much less compelling season. Just as you need a certain amount of luck to become sole survivor, you need a certain amount of it to have a great season.

I did get tired of the “Look how far I’ve come, so I deserve to win,” narrative. It’s Outwit, Outplay, Outlast, not & Evolve. It’s shouldn’t work against Ken that he was a self-composed, focused person when the season began. Nor in the favor of David, Hannah or (to a lesser extent) Zeke because they were basket cases. Not that Ken deserved to win, IMHO. Outing Wil’s blindside was Ken’s kiss of death for me. Jay or Adam were the two I thought were most deserving to win and I’m glad one of them did. But David played a great game, too, and planting that fake idol was absolutely wahsome.

Interesting how David would imagine himself going home seemingly before each TC, remark how he’s amazed he’s still here after yet another vote, start to believe… and then get voted off by the guy who places trust and loyalty at the top of his list. I don’t see it as a cruel joke, but rather, when you put all that worry energy out there, the moment you stop worrying is when it manifests. (Hippy-dippy New Age rant over.)

One of my all-time favorite seasons. Top 5 at very least.

I was all-in for David, and wasn’t really on the Adam train, but what was so remarkable for me is that I didn’t dislike Adam (or any of them) and don’t mind him winning on his merits. I agree with the point that he would have won anyway; his sob story just made it unanimous.

Call me crazy, but I thought Hannah did an excellent job at final tribal, and as an objective observer who wasn’t rooting for any of those three, she swayed me. (I used to be on the David & Ken train, but his outing of Will ended my appreciation of his game.) The best was when Chris heaped on the loving praise of Adam, crediting him with turning Ken as the clincher for why he deserved to win. Uh, yeah, that was Hannah, Chris. Not Adam.

Call me crazy, but I thought Hannah was starting to look kinda hot in those short shorts as the season progressed…

P.S. I thought she held her own in FTC, also. Good on her.

BTW, I didn’t watch past the first 15 minutes of the reunion show. Is the rest worth it? More importantly, does Figgy confront Taylor about his pregnant girlfriend?

No. She says they are no like a thing. He confirms that he is a new father.

Speaking of the fake idol, I really thought it wouldn’t work because normally there’s a rule sheet with it. I don’t think production would let David include his old rule sheet in a fake Idol (though he definitely included SOMETHING paper-ish looking). The way they cut it made it look like Jay didn’t even read it, which is believable since he already had a HII previously, I suppose.

The fact that the emblem was pink when it clearly should’ve been black (to match their tribe color like the others), I’m willing to cut Jay slack on since I think they’re all a bit brain fried by then.

And yet Hannah let it go without a comment (as far as we saw). That was really her chance to step up and take credit. One big reason I think she did a terrible job at FTC.