The thing is, people who are physically gifted enough to become professional athletes are so far to the end of the curve across a slew of physical gifts (coordination, balance, muscle control, on and on) that they tend to be good at just about every physical task. Which makes them extremely hard to get rid of once the Individual Immunity challenges start.
At this point the men of that tribe have such a majority that they probably think the increased risk of going to another Tribal Council or two MORE than they might with Rocker there is worth it for not having to compete against him later on.
And it’s been a long time they let one team get wildly out ahead in numbers. So they might do an early merge or some hybrid merge + instant teams for challenges, and either way you’re just as likely to be facing Rocker as having him beside you.
I’ve been distracted by how many people are wearing their tribe colour (including nail polish, even!). Clearly the tribes were pre-determined, which I think is great as it makes imbalances of gender or strengths less likely, but why bother with the pretense of “randomly” selecting tribes?
Actually, I was thinking more of a meltdown he started. Frankly, the other tribe was so asshole-ish, I’m surprised he didn’t react more strongly.
Not to defend his actions in the past, be we’re talking comparing what some 20-something guy did with his 40-something self. Judge the guy by what he is, not what he was.
I’ve noticed this in probably the last 6 seasons. The men tend to have tribe-color-palette (TCP) shirts or shorts, the women show up inexplicably in TCP bikinis in a challenge, etc etc. No comment is made how they got this wardrobe, but obviously this is wardrobe they were given to wear by the production company, not just stuff they happened to have brought with them. That doesn’t mean the teams weren’t random, they probably were, but the players were dressed by “the company store” for at least some apparel after that. It’s not obvious around camp, and it seems like the most is made of it when both tribes are on camera together, otherwise you might never notice.
They could just tell them both colors beforehand, have them bring two sets of belongings, then only keep whichever color clothes matches the tribe they end up on.
They do have access to basic supplies off-screen, like tampons, contact lens solution and the like. It isn’t a stretch to think they supply team-specific items for better TV.
I’ve noticed it for several seasons too, but this year it was jarring enough to me that I knew there’d be an orange team as the cast arrived, long before buffs were chosen, based on how much orange I saw people wearing (most notably Baylor’s orange manicure, and I think Dale? had orange trunks and and orange shirt)
Since you don’t know who the other contestants are before your arrival (other than your loved one, in a BvW season), I don’t think it would be a big deal to tell someone “you’ll be on the orange team, pls. bring an orange bathing suit plus something orange for your main clothes.”
And I, for one, appreciate that they’ve started doing it – makes it a lot easier to sort things out in complicated scenes, like challenges, or just for the first couple of weeks while I’m still sorting out who’s who.
Oh, I love that they do it! I just don’t understand why they bother with a fake “random” buff selection moment, when it seems obvious (to me) that the teams are predetermined.
I dont think this is the case. Either the tribes are pre-determined, or they are random.
Do you have a cite that shows Jeff doing a “random” buff selection moment and they all line up in the proper colors? I have seen predetermined tribes (as in this game) and also later colors showing up.
Oh! I’m sorry - you’re totally right. I don’t have a cite and can’t go back to watch again for myself. I had the impression that Jeff had declared it random, but I don’t know why I thought that… I’m sure I was mistaken. Thanks!
There was a scene in the first episode this season where everyone picks (covered) buffs and then they all reveal at the same time to see which tribe they were on. It was right before the firefighter had the first dual with his wife.
It wasn’t clear whether each pair picked randomly, or each package had a mark of some kind on it, and they were told ahead of time, “pick the one with the ribbon that’s the same color as your clothing”.
Watching the episode online now - at the first meeting with Jeff, before division, several teams absolutely were already split into orange and blue clothing - Reed & Josh, the old guy and his daughter, the 3-times divorced mother & daughter, the beauty queen(?) and boyfriend. Then Jeff said “It is time to divide up into tribes.” - nothing about being randomly divided. Then he handed out the packages to each couple from a common bowl - a single bowl with 18 packages. So considering that if was completely random, it would be astronomically unlikely for every pair to wind up on separate tribes, I have to assume the packages were marked in some way so each person knew which one to take. Or they selected the packages randomly for the camera, stopped filming and threw those away and handed out new ones specifically to each player. And each of the 4 couples mentioned above wound up on the correct tribe they were already dressed for. So they tried to keep the illusion of random division, but it clearly was not so.
Well, it was absolutely not a purely random draw because that would allow a pair to be on the same team. It looked to me like they chose pairs, divvied up the pair between the two loved ones, then revealed which tribe everyone was on.
The CBS website still has the premiere episode (titled “Suck It Up and Survive”) available for viewing. You have to sit through a commercial at the start, but can then jump straight to the tribe selection at 10:20.
When selecting buffs, they select a bundled pair of buffs, and then when they reveal, there does appear to be quite a lucky coincidence of their clothing matching their tribe colors. But it was absolutely presented as a random draw.
On the blue tribe:
4 tribe members are wearing almost the perfect shade of blue
2 are wearing very dark blue, close to black
1 has a blueish-purple shirt that matches the tribe color quite well
1 is wearing patterned blue and white, close enough to blue
1 is wearing light green (burn the infidel!)
On the orange tribe:
4 are wearing bright orange (one is wearing orange and red)
2 are wearing yellow
1 is wearing pink
1 is wearing green with a dark purple-ish flannel on top
1 is wearing blue (rocker, whose girlfriend is in the patterned white/blue shirt)
So yeah, if that’s random chance, it’s equivalent to being hit by lightning after buying a winning lottery ticket.
Actually, I did out the math, and if it was a truly random draw from a pool of 18 packages, the odds of every couple winding up on a different tribe are .01053 (9!/171513…3). The odds of each person winding up on the exact tribe they were preselected for are much smaller - (1/2^9) * (9!/1715*…*3) = .000020568.