I have a question for you…
It became quite apparent that a lot of people were initially against forming alliances, and the Pagong alliance was only formed when they realised they were being picked off.
My question is…
If you were to be on the next Survivor… would you have any hesitation at all about being in an alliance?
Yes and no, I’d join an alliance that seemed the strogest, and most able to stick together, but with everyone having seen the first one, you’d have to be a lot sneakier. I personally would pick a likely time, and then switch to another alliance. The level of double dealing and backstabbing will be much higher on the next show.
I would do whatever it takes to win. If that meant joinging an alliance and backstabbing and being sneaky… for $1,000,000, I’d do it in a heartbeat!
Without a doubt…I would join (create) an alliance within seconds of starting the game.
This Survivor was a template for us to follow. If it works, don’t fix it.
I wish I could join the next Survivor. It’s only open to American residents.
Yes, I would. Bearing in mind, of course, that everyone that is going to be on the next Survivor has already seen this one. I think the pretty much everyone is going to be in an alliance. It will come down to who has the strongest alliance, and the weaker ones will get picked off. It’s going to be a much stronger game, and I would guess a lot more double crossing will be going on.
Call me crazy, but I must be the only person left in America who has never bothered to watch this show. Of course, I’m also the only person left in America who hasn’t watched “Who wants to be a millionaire?” either.
No, you’re not the only one. I have never and will never watch either of these shows. I also did not watch “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?” <hurl>
I, too, have not seen an entire episode of the show. I tuned in for a few minutes on the second episode to see what all the hype was about. Seemed like another Real World, but only on an island, sans the mansion.
But, if I was going to be on the next show, I’d join the alliance. Why not? The only problem I forsee is work letting me take a 15 week vacation. Don’t think they’d be too into that…
I have actually travelled through this part of the world a considerable amount so, of course, everybody thinks I give a crap about this bullshit.
I first heard about it with the rat eating. Now I have stayed on an uninhabited island in the South China Sea and I’m here to tell you that you would have to be one stupid bastard to eat a rat in these circumstances. You’d have to be too slow to fish and too stupid to catch fruit to be forced to eat a rat. There’s a lot of other delicious and available food before you get to rat.
And that set they use, how hollywood is that? The Malays must be laughing their asses off when they see that crap. When I caught a glimse of it I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I hear a lot of people bemoaning the effect of television violence on youth today, (twenty years too late, I might add), but no one seems to have noticed that 55 million viewers just got short course in how being a bastard is really how you win the game. What message is this sending?
Now we seem to find entertainment in the barest and most glaring examples of human baseness in pursuit of money. Be scared, be very scared.
I’m rather curious. I keep seeing a lot of people that are quite proud of never seeing Survivor. They usually are accompanied by examples of why it’s a stupid show.
If you haven’t seen it, how do you really know how stupid it is? You can take the media’s word for what’s happening on it, but I think you should probably watch at least a whole episode before throwing stones.
Why is this such a point of pride?
I feel that the implication is that anyone who does watch is it clearly not as intellectual as you are. The rest of us just got sucked in because we can’t think for ourselves.
I thought it was an interesting show, and clearly showed human nature, at both its high and low points. Perhaps you would prefer reruns of Full House???
I started watching Survivor around the 4th show. At first, what drew me in was the sense of denial among the non-alliance players. I kept asking myself how they could be so stupid as to think that there wasn’t an alliance. I kept coming back each week wondering when they were going to wake up and form a new alliance.
At first I thought the show was fun. The last few episodes left me feeling a little… unsettled ? Disturbed ? By the end, I thought the whole show was a little sick. Sue’s rant during the final show left me feeling like I needed to go clean myself. It was like watching pornography.
Did anybody else draw a connection between Survivor and the Stephen King story, “The Long Walk”?
No, shadowfox, you are not crazy. I haven’t seen the damn show, either.
From what I have heard from friends, acquaintances and co-workers, I expect this: if similar shows are aired in the future, someone will resort to murder on one of them. $1 million is a helluva temptation.
Except that I it murder would likely result in disqualification (though I wonder who’s laws would be applicable).
You may be right, obfusciatrist, but I am willing to bet that someone will try murder if these shows continue. A lot of things, morality included, fly out the window when $1 million rustles softly.
lolagranola: I personally have never seen it, and from the description I saw in the paper when it started, I thought the concept was stupid, which is why I never watched it. That doesn’t mean I’m superior to the people watching it, just that I had different tastes in entertainment. I’m sure many of the things I watch would be considered stupid by other people.
Why do people feel pride? Because they can say they haven’t been persuaded by a large marketing blitz to watch something that many other people were watching. So in that sense they are proving their independence of mind.
Please note this does not mean that a book / film / album that is supported by a huge advertising campaign and is widely popular is necessarily trite and unoriginal. But I would say the odds are against it being an opus that will be remembered throughout the ages as a masterpiece.
I tuned into about the last 15 or so minutes to see who won because two friends I was roleplaying in an AD&D campaign were watching it, so I figured what the hell.
My not watching it doesn’t make me any better intellectually or any other way than anyone else. I just thought the concept was stupid, Hell, people would laugh at me because I watch Pokemon and Digimon and Cardcaptors. Voluntarily. I love those shows. So it’s got nothing to do with intellect as Arnold said. The concept just sounded so moronic to me and I decided it wasn’t really my thing.
And I had that proven to me those 15 minutes I saw in the last episode. Some of the biggest crap I’ve ever seen on television. I agreed with elbows in that it makes me sick that only by being a total jerk and back stabbing and double crossing is the way to win and yes, that just sends a great message to people. And I find it sad that mere money would reduce people to such things.
I found the implication that Survivor was somehow an actual representation of a real life situation to be simply ludicrous, but the addition that the method of playing the game correlates with how to behave in life makes it disgusting. Of course, if you work or live in an environment where you’re forced to vote every three days to kick someone out of the group, regardless of their peformance, then maybe it helps you.
Even more disgusting was the stunt that that CBS executive pulled on NPR (pretending to be a columnist for Fortune, I think.)
[for those who watched the show, or at least the final episode]:
All the commentary centers on the winner, since of course the producers edited the show to put his methods on display. When it came down to it, though, it appears he only won by random chance, although I guess he did get himself into the last round so he had that chance.
The random chance part – when the jury was questioning the last two, Greg asked them simply to pick a number between 1 and 10. We might assume that he actually didn’t care, and in fact used that as his only criterion for voting. His was the last vote shown, and since the vote was tied at that point, they didn’t show what he said, probably to increase the drama. When Jeff “don’t put me back on Rock’n’Roll Jeopardy” Probst pulled the votes, he pulled the very first one out, which appears to have been Greg’s (since his was last in), and it said ‘Rich’. I stopped watching at that point, and he did in fact, end up winning. Was the footage of what he said there ever released?
I’m kind of tired of all this, actually. I hear the next one’s being filmed in the back of a Subaru wagon. Last one to stay in there with Paul Hogan wins.
panama jack
“American for Beach”
I pretty much agree with Atrael, except that I wouldn’t switch to another alliance unless the first were clearly “losing”. The exception being that, if my alliance were dominant, I’d want to be on the winning side when the alliance inevitably splinters into one or more groups.
I would also be VERY careful to avoid being in the “Richard” role of ringleader or mastermind behind the alliance. THIS time, I think there will be a backlash against any obvious leaders of a dominant alliance.
I’ve seen a few minutes of Survivor and Millionaire and you may count me in as being one of the few who seem to be able to not be impressed.
Survivor, it is all politics and chit chat. Too much talk, and less action.
As for millionaire, I don’t care about Bob LaQwerty from Assboink, ID .I want a faster paced show. It’s too slow moving.