Yup. And (as has been said) the right strategy at this early point in the game is to vote out the weak players, not to make a power-play. These people are supposed to be the “super fans”, but they’re making the same mistakes that have been made in every season.
It was just stupid beyond belief to go for breaking up a budding romance, rather than vote out the demonstrably weakest player. I predict right now that there will be no fans in the final four.
A question about Johnny Rotten’s voting himself out last week: It has always been my understanding that when someone is voted out, they don’t get to go home. They have to stay at the production hotel until the game is over. This makes sense to me; if people went home as they were voted out, the folks at home would have knowledge of how the show went, which Burnett wants to avoid. So Johnny Jerkoff’s point that he wanted to be voted off so he could go home and see his girlfriend (wife?) and daughter didn’t make any sense. Am I missing something?
I’ve just been reading the Television Without Pity Survivor forum on this week’s episode, and noted one thing there that hasn’t been mentioned here yet. Apparently though she didn’t win the show, being booted didn’t hurt Mary’s (Mary? who?) personal life. After being doomed to spend time with Johnny Fairplay at Loser’s Lodge, he introduced her (read “set up”) to another former survivor once the show was over. She and Ryan O from Survivor Pearl Islands are already engaged, and apparently planning their wedding.
That has “everlasting love” written all over it.
I hear ya. As pink frosting on the wedding cake, apparently Lex from Africa and All Stars is going to be performing the wedding ceremony.
I did like Ryan O on Pearl Islands though, as a person, if not a player. I remember him with the pelican on the beach.
He’s a local guy, for me. I actually met him a few times-- a real nice guy. And Lex lives right over the hill (Santa Cruz is less than 20 miles away), so there is a local connection between the two.
I still fondly remember “Little Rhino”…
Yeah, he wasn’t the best player in the world, but he did suffer the fate of being the strong, young guy everyone was afraid of competing with after the merge. Still, a good player (like Fireman Tom) forges a strong alliance to make sure that doesn’t happen. Ryan O was a lot younger than Tom, though, so it’s not too surprising that the older guy was also wiser.
He was also stuck with a sucky tribe: Lill, Osten, and Savage, etc. One of the worst, ever, in my opinion.
Good point. You’re right, they’re wising up. I saw Probst in an interview on MSNBC the other night, and he pretty much conceded that they release certain misinformation to counter real spoilers that get out there. I like that they take an interest in their fandom. My only complaint at this point is that they should be filming in HD wide-screen. It would be great to see the exotic places, not to mention how filthy and bug-bitten the players really are.
Because I started the thread, and thought I’d drop in when I got home… without stopping to think what time it was. No mystery, really.
Well, I guess I must have missed it over and over then. Excuuuusse me! 
I made a simple request; if it was out of line, so be it… no need for over-reaction.
Back to the snark about the topic, please!
Oh come on, you have to admit that calling you a “wah-wah-west coaster” was pretty good. Right? Bueller?
I never get that part either. If you know you want to go in Survivor, why not spend hours practicing some of the basic skills you see on the show? I don’t think anyone expects you to be some sort of expert but once you get picked surely there’s time to practice making fire?
The fans are not impressing me at all so far.
Me, too. I was also surprised how much time they spent in the Favorites camp before the IC/RC, and then the Fans team won. They’re definitely switching up, which is great – keep me guessing, I’m fine with that. As long as they’re consistent at what they show me; I’m not sure where the line is where the editing would piss me off. They’ve crossed that line a number of times, but I think they are aware of this and try not to be too unfair in the editing.
Agreed. HD cameras can’t be that expensive these days, even for pro gear (more likely its “cheap” in the same ballpark that SD equipment is, which is still really expensive but not out of the ordinary for a weekly show). Is Survivor shot on film? I’m not sure, but it has that look. However, they do use a lot of probably expensive special gear, like the cameras they use at night, and stop motion gear for shots like watching the sun rise and clouds moving, compressing 2 hours to 30 seconds. Dunno if that impacts the way they shoot. I’d guess they have a shooting process in place and are loath to painfully change it. But, c’mon CBS – its time, give us Survivor HD!
It’s all the more a mystery to me since Burnett has often bragged about how he likes to make his shows “look big” with wide, sweeping helicopter shots and broad fish-eye zooms. These days, if your show is squeezed into a 4 x 3 box and you can’t see the misplaced single strand of hair over someone’s eye, then it just doesn’t look like a big production.
We’re at the point now where every PGA tournament is in HD, and that takes a lot of cameras. Doing the same for “Survivor” should be a piece of cake. Hey, Burnett: We want our HDTV!
Well, to be fair, a sports event isn’t recorded or edited (outside of instant replays), so it is a very different production process; its basically all live shooting plus a big semi of equipment to route all the signals and a director who picks the shots and overlays, plus some backup material like interviews that can be played at opportune times. Having said that, I’m not a TV pro, so I’m not sure what technical or budget issues a Survivor production would need to surmount to move to HD.
And having said all that, I want Survivor in HD now, dammit.
Lots of HD shows are of the edited variety. From sitcoms to dramas to documentaries, there’s a lot of them that aren’t live.
I’d bet that the ratio of Survivor “footage” to that of an hour drama is probably in the neighborhood of 25 to 1 in the early episodes. That might factor in. Also, I am still convinced that a lot of the wildlife is stock, and they might not all be available in HD.
If Discovery channel can shoot the much lower budget shows Survivorman and Dirty Jobs in HD, there’s no reason whatsoever Burnett can’t do the same for Survivor.
I’d have to assume they don’t hold you at gunpoint - if you absolutely want to leave, you can leave, though you’d probably forfeit any prize money or payments. More probably though, he was able to stay in daily contact with his girlfriend while at Loser Lodge, and could get home in 24 hours if he had to.