Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Survivor: Cagayan premiere

So the twenty-eighth season of Survivor is about to start. They will put brains versus brawn versus beauty. They say that those are the three main reasons that people need to win the game. So it might be fun to list some of the winners and what of the three traits they have. My apologies if they are not listed here. I’m not sure that all of them or any of them will make the list. I don’t think that every winner would fit any of the three qualities. Where is the social tribe? How is beauty an advantage in the game? What man looks good? Women are the attractive ones. Regardless, I’ll get to the list of winners and what traits they had soon. Also, the posts may seem strange depending on if I’m going back to the old way of doing it or not. I think that I’m going back to the old ways, so look for blog posts older than episode 25.2 and you should be able to see the difference.

Here are the winners that would be on the brain tribe: Richard, Tina, Ethan, Vecepia, Brian, Sandra, Chris, Danni, Aras, Yul, Earl, Todd, Parvati, Bob, Natalie, Rob, Kim, Denise, and John. Here are the winners that would be on the brawn tribe: Ethan, Brian, Jenna, Chris, Tom, Bob, JT, Fabio, Rob, Sophie, Kim, and Tyson. Here are the winners that would be the beauty tribe: Ethan, Jenna, Amber, Parvati, JT, and Natalie. I think that is all I can think of right now. That’s all the winners, but I’m not sure if that’s all of the attributes for them. This season should be sort of easy to predict who wins based on what of the three attributes they have based on what tribe they started on, but they could have the other two in the end as well.

There are some things that I wonder about this season. Will there be a tribe swap? Will there be a tribe dissolve? There are many different ways of handling the three tribe situation. They could go from 3 to 1. They could go from 3 to 3 to 1. They could go from 3 to 2 to 1. They could go from 3 to 2 to 2 to 1. They could go from 3 to 3 to 2 to 1. They could do something else too, but they very likely would only do one of them and not something else.

So it’s time to start talking about the different twists they’ve announced for this season that aren’t the main twist of this season. At the beginning of the game, a leader of the tribe will be chosen. This could potentially mean that there will be no tribe swap at all during the game. Or it could mean that the leader twist immediately ends upon the tribe swap part of the game. Now I’m pretty sure that the leader position is done for a while in the game and not just at the opening part of the game. I’ve been wanting them to redo that twist since they first did it in Samoa. Russell Swan’s evacuation messed it up some so one could wonder if all three leaders will make it to the merge or if they’d have to replace leaders like they did with Russell. I’m not entirely sure if the first impressions twist is being used again or not. I don’t really like how one person will get rid of another person, but since it isn’t a permanent removal from the game, it might not be as bad as normal. I do wonder if a leader could send themselves instead of a different person. You’d think that someone on the brains tribe would figure that out, if that’s who they truly are in the game. There might be a rule against it, so we’ll have to wait to see what happens. There will be a lot of hidden immunity idols this season. They’ve even added a newish one. They’d dubbed it the Tyler Perry idol based on the film maker who most people either love or hate. I simply don’t care about his work although I don’t have anything against it either. The rules of the hidden immunity idol sounds very similar to the failed idol format of both Panama and Cook Islands where whoever had the idol was guaranteed to never even be voted against because it was too powerful for people to even consider that sort of thing. At least it won’t be present until after the merge.

Now, I’ve said that I will root for Kass to win this season since she followed me on twitter. Turns out, that was more of a hack than a real support to follow. So I might still root for her or I could root for someone else. More than likely, I’ll find someone else, although I could stick with her for the time being. Trish from this season followed me on twitter so maybe I’ll stick with her instead. I do wonder who will win. The winner all depends on how the names are arranged. On wikia, whoever is alphabetically last by first name is the winner because in seasons that have finished airing, that’s where the winner is listed. That would make Yung the winner. On wikipedia, there are two main different lists. One has the contestants names listed with hometown and tribe also mentioned. The winner of seasons that are completed is the last name mentioned. Since they are listed alphabetically by last name, Jeremiah is the winner this way. Their other way of listing names is the voting chart where the winner is the first name mentioned. So by alphabetical order of first names, which is how they are currently listed, Alexis is the winner. So that makes three potential winners at the moment and all of them could be wrong. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Jeff introduces the contestants for this season and what tribe they are on. The confessionals are mostly even for each tribe as they all arrive on the location of what would become the start of the game. L J becomes the leader of the beauty tribe. Sarah becomes the leader of the brawn tribe. David becomes the leader of the brains tribe. L J decides to get rid of Morgan. He has very dumb reasons for doing that. Sarah decides to get rid of Trish. “The jacket doesn’t match the pants so it’s not a suit,” is what David says about his outfit. David decides to get rid of Garrett. “Now it’s the three tribes worrying what did we just do,” was one of Jeff’s awesome one liners. And yes, I will do random quotes as often as I can. I also need to eat supper at some point. And tweeting is very difficult to do since I’m trying to keep up with this blog. Meanwhile, I’m recording this episode for people. Garrett arrived at his beach and decided to look for the hidden immunity idol. Trish decides to help the team out by helping to set up camp. Morgan decides to look for the hidden immunity idol. When this twist appeared in Tocantins, the person who went for the idol didn’t last long in the game whereas the person who helped set up camp made it to the merge and jury. Garrett finds the hidden immunity idol in what might now be the newest record for earliest found hidden immunity idol. Morgan is looking for the idol as her tribe made it to the beach.

In the second segment of the show, Morgan lied and said that what was already there was what she picked for the tribe. She was “dressed like a mermaid coming out of an ocean,” according to L J. Mermaids are pretty so it seems appropriate. There might be alliances formed on that tribe already, although it is a bit hard to tell for sure what is happening in all the drama of the game starting. Yung knows who Cliff is. Sarah thinks that Tony is a cop. Tony says that he isn’t, although he is. So there might already be a rivalry between the two of them this season. All the tribes have now arrived on the beach and J’Tia is becoming the leader black woman. Jolanda did that and failed in Palau. So she might not be that good a player this season like a lot of people think she’ll be. Every player now has a confessional this season. I think that J’Tia will be the first one voted out of her tribe and Kass doesn’t think that her tribe (the brains tribe) is not very smart.

In the third segment of the show, the immunity challenge happened. I made myself a sandwich to eat with supper with a fruit cup to go with it. The challenge seems too complicated for me to talk about as it happens, so I’ll take this opportunity to eat. I think that the brains tribe will end up losing the challenge. Beauty wins the immunity challenge and the brawn tribe comes in second. This means that the brains tribe will go to the first tribal council of the season.

In the fourth segment of the show, the drama after losing a challenge started to unfold. Kass thinks that it’s a good idea to tell J’Tia that she wants to vote against J’Tia. J’Tia wants to say how strong she is by randomly bursting out in to tears for no good reason. Or something like that happened. So J’Tia or David might be the target to be voted out tonight. Garrett doesn’t want to reveal the fact that he has an idol so let’s see how long that lasts. A spider spooked someone at tribal council. J’Tia might not do that well, but I don’t know yet if she will or won’t. Garrett might be on the outs of his tribe for the moment. J’Tia thinks that voting out David would be a good idea. So the voting happened next and it looks like I don’t know who will be voted out, although I do have a guess as to who it might be. There was no idol played at tribal council tonight. The votes weren’t read until after the commercial.

In the fifth segment of the show, it turns out that after the tribal council votes are read that David is actually the first person voted out of the game. Does that mean that they have to choose a new leader on his old tribe? I think that this makes this the first time that a famous person was the first person voted out of the game. And it looks like they don’t have to choose a new leader, it seems at least. This early into the game and we might already have a showmance between Morgan and Jeremiah. There was a dramatic shot in the show for seemingly no good reason since they weren’t going into a challenge suddenly. Neither Trish nor Kass seems like that good a person to root for.

In the sixth segment of the show, they decided to do combined reward/immunity challenges again. I’m not sure why it is this soon into the episode so we might see a ton of the reward before the tribal council. Both the second place and first place person will win some form of reward as well as some form of immunity. What happened to challenges that weren’t combined all the time throughout the season? Did All-Stars have combined challenges all the time? I don’t think that they did. But I should continue trying to eat yet another late meal while I try to do my only blog post before Lent starts this season. Tweeting at the same time doesn’t seem to work. There were some injuries at the challenge, so that might come into play later into this season. The brains tribe for some odd reason is struggling at the puzzle because apparently only one person can do the puzzle and they chose a player that they didn’t think was that good just a few days ago. The brains lost the second immunity challenge as well.

In the seventh segment of the show, Tony found his tribe’s hidden immunity idol. The brains tribe was wondering who to vote out and J’Tia once again seems like the obvious choice. Garrett’s open forum of what happened could turn against him or Tasha’s sudden craziness could do that too.

In the eighth segment of the show, more drama unfolded at the dumb tribe, I mean, smart tribe. The way things are going right now, Garrett better play his hidden immunity idol. Is it bad that I already have nominees for the dumbest move award of the season? I might have to list all the bad moves that I choose from for each season. J’Tia thinks that imitating Brandon Hantz is a good idea when she dumps out her tribe’s rice. I’ll be disappointed if she isn’t voted out tonight. After the drama unfolded at tribal council, Garrett didn’t play his hidden immunity idol. I guess that he gets to keep that idol as a woman’s alliance on his tribe forms. This makes me wonder what they’ll do after they vote out Spencer.

On the next Survivor, not much interesting is shown on the promo. Too bad. I’m sure something good and interesting will happen, just not sure what.

Confessional counts of players: Garrett- 6, Jefra- 1, Spencer- 2, Latasha (Tasha)- 4, Trish- 4, Yung (Woo)- 1, Brice- 3, Sarah- 4, Alexis- 2, L J- 2, Morgan- 4, Kassandra (Kass)- 5, Lindsey- 3, Cliff- 3, David- 3, J’Tia- 3, Tony- 6, Jeremiah- 1

So, if I did this correctly, Garrett’s high confessionals was not a good thing. I didn’t split the confessionals up based on the halfway point of the episode. But since all the other episodes are normal, then I shouldn’t have to worry based on stuff like this. I have the feeling that this will be a very good season and might mean that there won’t be returning players in seasons in the near future. I’m very much looking forward to the next episode. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Palau versus Future Season

This may be my last random blog post for quite a while. By the summer, if not sooner, I will finally watch and blog about the first season. The posts will show up at some point. With that happening during the summer, it might not be until the next gap between the 29th and 30th season that I will do random blog posts like this again. I'm not even sure that I like it or not. I'll probably get more ideas over time so you'll see what happens. With the new season of Survivor starting on Wednesday, I figure that I might as well get back to the main and regular blog posts for a while until the season is done. And I'll let you know what happens with the random die roll, although I am done with the Christmas movies and have only one special left to watch before too long. So without further ado, here's my blog post.

There are three players from Survivor: Palau who have played other Survivor seasons. I’m going to mention them now and list the seasons they played and which one I think they did best in. So here goes another random blog post. The three people who have played Survivor: Palau and done other seasons after that are Bobby Jon, Stephenie, and Tom. And I want everyone from this season who can play again to return to the game at some point. So what I’m wondering is did they do best in the season they debuted or a future season?

I’ll start with Bobby Jon. In Survivor: Palau he was on the terrible Ulong tribe. He had mixed success with voting people out of the game. He did not vote against Jolanda or Jeff when they were voted off. He succeeded in causing a tie with Angie and James which eventually got them both voted out. He was one of only two contestants throughout the whole series to be subject to a tie-breaker twice. Like Lindsey from the third season, he won the first tie-breaker and lost the second. Since the tie-breaker challenge in Palau was very strange, most people don’t count it as a real tie-breaker just like they don’t count him being idoled out in Guatemala. He is the only player to be eliminated from a tribe of two. That was the strange way that eliminated him from the game just one player before the jury. On both of his seasons, he had a memorable rivalry with another man. In Palau he seemed to spar with Tom from time to time and in Guatemala he regularly butted heads with Jamie. Every pre-merge boot he voted against in Guatemala was successful. The two post-merge votes he cast were not done successfully, unless you count his jury vote. He would have made it farther in the game had Gary not played a hidden immunity idol, but since that was played at the time before the votes were cast, this is generally not counted, although I think that it should be. I should take it up with the wikia editors, but first, I should stop being lazy and actually get an account at the website instead of being one of the many outcasts there. In case you didn’t know, outcast is the name that Survivor wikia gives to its unregistered/anonymous users. He might be the only player to be the last one eliminated before the jury in one season and be the first member of the jury in another season. He also might be the only two time player to have an only three day improvement in the game when he played the second time. While he is good player, I’m not exactly sure that he was stand out in either season he was in. But he must have been stand out enough since they wanted him back for Blood versus Water, only to cut him and his cousin before filming began. I’d say that he probably did better in Guatemala since he got to be on the jury, something that he always wanted to do.

The next player that I’ll mention is Stephenie. In Survivor: Palau, she became the first Survivor contestant to vote against every member of her tribe. While her tribe was weak, she outlasted every single one of them and became the only player to be on a tribe of one. This caused an unusual feat in the game when she became the only contestant from that season to be on more than one tribe. She was absorbed by the dominate tribe, thus a merge that season didn’t end up happening. The dominate tribe didn’t want her to have an advantage in the game by outlasting her old tribe so they eventually voted her out of the game and she became a member of the jury. She returned to the game in Guatemala where she had a much different way of playing that game that was equally ineffective. While all her votes in the game was successful at getting someone voted out, she only got one vote to win the game since she basically screwed over all her friends by the time she reached the finals. She is the only player from Guatemala to return to play the game again, which is generally not counted by some since she wasn’t originally from that season. She returned on the twentieth anniversary season as a hero, despite her villainous ways in Guatemala (let’s face it, a lot of the heroes should have been villains, they just already had too many villains in the first place). She was the second person voted out of the game and to my knowledge is the only second place contestant to be the second person voted out of another season (although I could be wrong about that as I sometimes am). Not sure if she did best in any of them or just bad in all of them for different reasons each time.

The only other player left to mention is Tom. I’ve stated this before, how I believe that over the course of one season, he won more challenges of a combination of tribal and individual challenges. He is the only winner to never leave his original tribe (all the others had to after they merged). He was definitely very likable and loved by almost everybody during his season. He had a bit of a bumpy ride in Heroes versus Villains and didn’t really last long in it. For goodness sakes, he was voted out instead of the guy wearing a cast! But not everyone can rule that well in every season they’ve played. In fact, only one person has arguably done this (Sandra). At least his scheming got Cirie voted out of the game and he proved to still be an effective player and getting others to help him do what he wants. Obviously, he did the best in the season that he won.


Contestant’s Name
Palau
Guatemala
Heroes versus Villains
Bobby Jon
good
better
did not play
Stephenie
likable
villainy
jinxed
Tom
best
did not play
worst

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Cagayan Cast Assessment

I have decided to do an assessment of this cast for the new season. I think since doing confessional counts are fun, I will continue to do them, but hopefully do more accurate ones than what I’ve apparently been doing lately. I might do more than just a cast assessment and do an assessment of the twists from this season as well as when they do the probable tribe swap/dissolve and what various ways they could do that as well. Here is some information about tribe swaps before I get into the more detailed information later. The episode it happens in various seasons (including dissolves and mutinies, or mutinies that happened at least). In Africa, it was the fifth episode. In Marquesas, it was the fourth episode. In Amazon, it was the fifth episode. In All-Stars, it was the fifth and ninth episodes. In Vanuatu, it was the fifth episode. In Guatemala, it was the fourth episode. In Panama, it was the second episode. In Cook Islands, it was the third and eighth episodes. In Fiji, it was the sixth episode. In China, it was the fifth episode. In Micronesia, it was the fifth episode. In Gabon, it was the fourth and eighth episodes. In Nicaragua, it was the fifth episode. In One World, it was the fifth episode. In Philippines, it was in the fifth episode. In Caramoan, it was in the sixth episode. In Blood versus Water, it was the first and sixth episodes. That makes nine seasons where the fifth episode had a tribe swap or dissolve. There were three seasons where the fourth episode had a tribe swap. There are also three seasons where the sixth episode had a tribe swap. Since the two tribe dissolves of seasons with three tribes both happened in the fifth episode, that’s where you can probably expect a tribe swap/dissolve of some sort to happen.

I’m not really sure of what I can say regarding the cast for this season. I notice a lack of older contestants in a season like this. But there also seems to be more racially diverse contestants than normal. I’m quite glad that all the Asians aren’t on the brains tribe. While I’m sure that people thinking they are smart is better than other stereotypes people have about other cultures, it still think that it is better not to have stereotypes at all. And does it matter that Americans, which include both those of Asian descent and those of other races, don’t have good test scores? Does that really matter? Do Americans have to be so prideful and always have to be the best at everything? Must we be so full of ourselves? What’s wrong with not having the best test scores? Aren’t there more things that are much more important in life? If you’re not in school all your life, you won’t be taking tests all your life. Unless you have an unfortunately short life, you will not be taking tests in the later and more important stages of life. And it doesn’t matter that Americans aren’t the best at everything. Does it really matter that we can’t do that well on largely unimportant tests throughout our lives? Will constantly pointed it out remove the stress and confusion that some people have about it and make the situation any better? Isn’t that just more likely to make things worse? Why do I keep asking questions that I’m not really sure people can answer? The point is, America is great at some things and other countries are great at other things. That is more than likely the way life will be for every citizen of every country! I’m perfectly fine with us not being the best.

Maybe I should start a different blog on subjects about this. Politicians are strange for wanting to cut educational funding while at the same time expecting us to do better at education. But I guess I’ve always let this blog have a little bit of leeway on various topics in life. Like about how much I miss watching Revolution and Arrow because they are both on at the same time as Survivor. I’m sure there might be people agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or as usual, not even reading this blog in the first place. Google executives and the NSA are the only two groups of people that read this blog. I’d be pleasantly surprised if Survivor fans are among the people who bother to click on this blog link. I could be wrong. But of all the millions of people who are online all the time and all the people who like reading blogs, having less than 200 people being confirmed to read this blog (and it’s probably way less than that since many of the readers are repeat readers and me) then I’d say that I have a lack of readers. At least some people are confirmed to have read this blog, even if it isn’t that many people. Maybe I state the same thing over and over again way too much like my desire to have an original player from Survivor: Guatemala return for a future season. It’s not fair that they are the only season to not have returning players, unless you count Stephenie who wasn’t originally from that season or Survivor: Caramoan which is too recent to have returning players yet, although it more than likely will leaving Guatemala the red headed step child of Survivor returning players. At least they’ve asked people from that season back, although why no one has yet confounds me. I also wonder if a relative, friend, or someone somehow related to Jennifer Lyon (or B. B. Andersen) to play Survivor. Who was Jenn’s loved one on Palau? I forgot who was there with her at the final six episode. Since that season is being lent to someone else at this time, I can’t watch if for myself, although I more than likely can and will look it up on wikia, although I’m not certain if they have that information listed there.

I realize that I’ve been forgetting to talk about the contestants in this season. Since it is all new players, it is very hard to tell any stand outs at this point in time. I’m not certain that I can get the complete listing that some might want in a season like this. I might do predictions about where they will make it in the game based on what little information I have about it at the time. I’ll have to look back at older posts of mine to remember what it is exactly that I said on that post and if I will do something similar to that or not. There are two famous sports players on this season. One of them is Cliff, a basketball player. To my knowledge, he is the first basketball player to play the game of Survivor. Also playing Survivor this season is a person who I understand is very controversial for some odd reason. Since I live nowhere near Florida, I don’t know who David is. In fact, I could no sooner tell you who a famous sports player is then why a Kardashian is famous. In fact, if you do know why the Kardashinans are famous, please let me know so you can help me solve one of the greatest mysteries in life. There are other things I don’t know why people give a crap. You should mind your own business. Like with the Casey Anthony case. Why do people care? Does it matter what she may or may not have done? Is it any of your business considering how only twelve people were on the jury and few others were actually important to the case? I can’t stand the media circus murder trials. I avoid them at all costs. In fact, I typically avoid any and all celebrity rumors, haters, things that are considered controversial but really aren’t, things I find overrated for whatever reason, and just anything that I really don’t want to be exposed to for whatever reason. That’s why I’m fairly certain that nobody reads this blog, not even NSA agents or google executives. And that’s a real shame to, because I miss being able to simply post this blog as I have been able to in the past, but I guess that google wants me using my blogger account the more real way or whatever their problem is. I’m more than certain that they are the ones who probably messed with the format in the first place. But I don’t know if this has affected other bloggers or not. But as usual, I have more than delayed the actual real point of this blog post.

Luzon is a green tribe and the tribe they put the brains contestants on. It would be interesting and amusing if one of the next dumbest moves on this show was caused by a member of this tribe. The contestants on it are Garrett, Spencer, Latasha (Tasha), Kassandra (Kass), David, and J’Tia. Since Kass started following me on twitter (twice, somehow, for some odd reason, that’s possibly one of many twitter glitches), I will now have to root for her to win this season of Survivor. If you are a contestant from this season, feel free to follow me as well and I’ll be sure to root for you to win if Kass is eliminated before you are. In all seriousness, I’m not sure who would be the best here yet. Latasha seems interesting with her religious beliefs that might not show up in the show, but probably will since they normally do. I think that she’ll probably be on the jury, but not a finalist. J’Tia is considered the most popular contestant already in some Survivor communities. I’m not sure that I’m impressed by her, so I’ll put her as a premerge boot. Garrett seems like a premerge boot to me since he doesn’t really seem to be aware of how the game works. David seems like one of those in your face players who is there to win and nothing else. There have been mixed results for players like that, so I’ll have him out before the merge. Kass is one of currently three contestants to follow me on twitter. The TV guide special that gives me most of the list doesn’t seem to give much intel on this player. But Jennifer Lyon made it far in the game even though she wasn’t seen as much. With nothing to go on, I’m still going to have to put her as a finalist. Spencer seems interesting, so I’ll put him on the jury.

Solana is a purple tribe and the tribe they put the beauty contestants on. This is the most likely tribe to become the next Matsing. The contestants on it are Jefra, Brice, Alexis, L J, Morgan, and Jeremiah. Morgan seems like she’s more cut out for other reality shows so I think that she’ll be a premerge boot. L J seems like he could make it far so I think that he’ll be a finalist. Jeremiah doesn’t seem that interesting to me. He reminds me of JT in a way. I think that he’ll be on the jury. Jefra seems like a jury member to me. Brice is a gay contestant. Normally those contestants turn into great characters which is probably the reason why they are cast (nothing to do with appeasing minorities, in this case). I’m not really sure what to make of him, but since gay contestants seem to make it far, I’ll put him as a jury member. Alexis seems like a premerge boot to me since she doesn’t seem to have the smarts to make it far.

Aparri is an orange tribe and the tribe they put the brawn contestants on. Since the strong players are strangely medically evacuated a lot of the time (Michael Skupin, Jonathan Penner, James Clement, Joe Dowdle, Russell Swan, and Shamar Thomas), I would put this as the most likely tribe to have a medically evacuated player this season. I was originally going to mention more about medically evacuated players, but I ended up doing that in an earlier blog post. The contestants on it are Trish, Yung (Woo), Sarah, Lindsey, Cliff, and Tony. Tony seems kind of cocky, but since a lot of cocky players made it far in the game, I’d put him as a jury member. Trish seems interesting, but probably not that much to make it as far and others would have. I predict that she’ll be a jury member. Sarah is another Christian. I’m not certain if she’s that good for the game, so I’ll put her on the jury. Cliff is a famous basketball player who is playing this season. There have been mixed results of celebrities on Survivor so I seem him as more of a premerge boot. Woo is an interesting person and reminds me of Yul. Yul won the game, so I’ll put him as a finalist. Lindsey seems sure of herself, so I’ll put her as a jury member. The jury could be strange this season, but with only seven people on the jury being unlikely in my mind, then I thought that this would be better.


So with my rankings listed there, I’m not really sure what else I can say about them. I don’t think that I’ll do whatever strange things I did the first time again, but who knows what will happen. You’ll see this list very soon on my blog. While it seems like I can no longer post it through Word the way that I used to, I still hope that this blog is pretty good and normal to the people who read this. It might get strange from here on out, but that shouldn’t matter since it’s still the same blog with just a different format to it. I hope that we all enjoy the upcoming Survivor season. I also made sure that the jury members and finalists were about right for the prediction that I put them at. There are three finalists predicted and eight jury members predicted. All the rest of them are premerge boot. There are other interesting twists this season, but I’ll talk about them more as they happen in my first blog post or later. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Survivor Blood versus Water Pairs on the Amazing Race

There have been two pairs of Survivor players who did the Amazing Race. The first pair was Boston Rob and Amber who appeared after their appearance together on Survivor: All-Stars. They ultimately finished the race in second place. Boston Rob’s wikipedia page talks about some sort of controversy in that race regarding the final leg. There might have been some production interference that helped another team get on the same flight as them and preventing them from sweeping the competition entirely in the final leg. This is weird that some people think that it was rigged for them to potentially lose the race that season since many people (incorrectly) that Redemption Island was rigged for Boston Rob to win. Now don’t forget that it would be impossible for either reality show to be scripted in any way (other than twists) because that would be illegal. And if you don’t believe me, then look up the quiz bowl scandals. Why it wasn’t illegal before them was a bit confusing, but they fixed the system now (we think and hope at least). But I would say that it is probable that nothing in Survivor is scripted. Look at the medical evacuations. Nobody would agree to fake that and definitely nobody would intentionally do something that would get themselves pulled from the game like that (unless you count the two people who chose to be medically evacuated, which still doesn’t seem scripted at all). Rob and Amber would also be on the (first) All-Stars version of the Amazing Race where they did very well at first, only to fail at an early leg and get eliminated from the game.

The other two Survivor players who did the Amazing Race were Jenna Moresca and Ethan. They dated for a long while and thought that they might be good players on the race. Afterwards, Jenna admitted that she would have done better with Heidi (from Amazon) and Ethan might have done better with Lex (from Africa and All-Stars). But they were mostly screwed at one of the Amazing Race’s many tough tasks that wasn’t really designed that well. That, among other reasons, is why I stopped watching the Amazing Race. I do tune in sometimes, typically when it is airing later than usual (if that term means anything) and I want to watch what’s on after it. But I do wonder what other Survivor players would want to be on the Amazing Race. I don’t think that I’ll do every grouping that I can think of, but I’ll only include contestants from Blood versus Water. That is the only season so far where the contestants were in obvious pairs of preexisting relationships and would be more than likely to work together in a show like this. And while I’m pretty sure that not every player from Blood versus Water would be on the Amazing Race, I will list those that I’m pretty sure would play on a show like the Amazing Race together. Sorry that I’m not doing it for more than just the most recent season.

I thought of this topic randomly at night where as usual, I tried to sleep and was thinking about various things in the meantime while I waited to fulfill that goal. I always fail at first and then at some random point in the night, I fall asleep. I have had a lot of Survivor dreams lately, but probably won’t talk about them until the regular blog posts of the next season. A dream can precede each blog post. I also think that I could post about Palau returning players and how they did in their various seasons, but I haven’t done that yet. I might do it soon. I was running out of ideas for blog posts to post until the next season starts and can’t remember if there is something that I forgot to post that I told my readers that I would post. If I actually had readers if this blog, maybe they would know and tell me what it is they wanted me to talk about that I haven’t talked about yet. In fact, you could do that even if I haven’t said I would talk about that subject in the future. Even though I stopped doing Wednesday posts for the moment, I still can’t think of enough posts for the moment. My friends haven’t done as much as their podcasts lately and they always post good information about future of Survivor. But for reasons unexplained, they haven’t done a podcast since Katie drew a white rock and was eliminated from the game. But I will start posting information about which of the ten pairs in Blood versus Water will be good for the Amazing Race, whether or not they actually ever play there or not. I’m not sure any of them would, but I thought that I might as well include this anyways.

The first pair that I will mention is Rupert and Laura Boneham. I’m pretty sure that Rupert regrets his decision to switch places with his wife on Redemption Island. His wife said something about that on the Survivor Live After Show about how he wouldn’t do that sort of thing again. I’m not sure if any contestant would ever do what he did. But I think that his place and possibly her place is on Survivor. They more than likely wouldn’t do the Amazing Race at all. I just don’t see them competing on a different show that they aren’t known for as much. But you’ll never know what might happen. The second pair that I will mention is Colton and Caleb. I don’t think that we’ll be seeing Colton on CBS any time soon or quite possibly, ever again. Since I’m only including pairs, then I don’t know. Colton had a back-up partner like every returning player did in Blood versus Water. So we don’t know if any of them were playing with their back-up partners. So if Caleb and whoever Colton’s other potential partner are friends or have some sort of relationship, then we might see him again. Regardless, I doubt that either of them would be playing the Amazing Race at any point.

The third pair that I will mention is Rachel and Tyson. Tyson seems to have a pretty, what’s the word I’m looking for? I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to watch Survivor all that much and pretty much seems not really that interested in most other things. So I don’t think that he’d be interested in playing, but they could compete in the end. I guess that I really don’t know but I say that it is probably unlikely for them to compete on the Amazing Race.  The fourth pair that I’m going to bring up is Marissa and Gervase. They didn’t seem to have that good a relationship in the game of Survivor. They probably do outside the game or at least, I hope they do. Regardless, I’m not sure that whatever relationship they had could lead them to Amazing Race potential. They more than likely won’t play that sort of game together.

The fifth pair that I’m going to bring up is Candice and John. Finally, I think that I’ve found a pair that would work. I could totally see this pair of players competing together in the Amazing Race. From their time together on Redemption Island until they potentially have kids, they might as well enjoy what time they can have with just the two of them. Now that preceding sentence may not make much sense, but I’m pretty sure that they could work well together on the Amazing Race because they can do well at various challenges. The sixth pair that I will mention is Brad and Monica. Believe it or not, they actually first applied for the Amazing Race together. CBS was apparently more interested in Monica than in her husband. And while Monica has stated that she might not be interested in doing Survivor again, I could see them competing together on the Amazing Race.

The seventh pair that I will mention is Kat and Hayden. If this were to ever happen, Hayden would be the first person to compete in the main big three CBS reality shows. Kat could use her new boobs to their advantage. They would be a great team. They would work well together and use what they could to their advantage. The eighth pair that I will mention is Aras and Vytas. They would love to do something like the Amazing Race together since they didn’t really do well together in Survivor in the brief time that they could actually play together. Them competing on the Amazing Race would be nice.

The ninth pair that I will mention is Katie and Tina. A lot happened to them while the season of Survivor was airing. I’m not sure if Tina’s first pick for a partner was her daughter or not. It would have been interesting, although still not any good, if it was her son that she played with and her son had still died during the airing of the season. It would be strange for someone who died to still be on the season that was airing at the time of their death. It would be better if it had to happen for the contestant to die after filming the season while it was either airing or going to air than it would for the contestant to die during the season itself and causing a huge mess for everyone involved and possibly even leading to the premature cancellation of Survivor itself. But that has not happened yet and if all things go well, it never well happen. Besides, it isn’t really strange for something new to be airing after that person in it died because both Paul Walker and Phillip Seymour Hoffman still have movies coming out in the future. And they were definitely not the first actors to do that and probably won’t be the last. But I seem to have once again distracted myself from the topic at hand. Tina and Katie appearing on the Amazing Race together seems unlikely in my mind. They really wouldn’t have that good a reason to. They might, but it seems strange since like Rupert, one is associated with only this show and they probably wouldn’t want to be associated with any other show. The tenth and last pair that I will mention is the only pair left. This pair made it the farthest together in Blood versus Water and whether or not they could do well in the Amazing Race seems a bit obvious that even if they don’t, it would still be entertaining for them to play. Laura Morett and Ciera would be great to see on the Amazing Race. There would be some of the bickering that I’m sure the cameramen and producers love to see on the show. And yet at the same time, they could probably work well together. It even seems that Laura didn’t even care that Ciera voted against her own mother. They could work well and fall apart at other times, but still be the type of players that we would love to see on the race.


As usual, this is a strange blog post. But I hope that it posts because I’m tired of it not working on Word anymore for no good reason. Did I mess something up? Did somebody somehow block that from happening? Does google not want me doing that and yet not have the decency to tell me that they want me posting it a different way now? Oh, well. It’s not like this isn’t posting at all. So I’ll be sure to update this blog soon and hopefully get back to more regular blog posts. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

The Top Ten Best Survivor Twists

Okay, a long time ago, I did my list of the ten worst Survivor twists. So this time, I’ve decided to post what I think are the ten best twists. Originally, I thought that I wouldn’t find enough twist ideas for it to work, but I looked up all the information that I could and I found what I needed to. I have decided what the best ten twists in Survivor are. As much as I loved the outcasts and love Redemption Island, I do not think that I could get away with naming either as the top ten. That could inspire a lot of hate on this blog and I’d rather get no comments (which is something I’m used to) then a whole bunch of hateful comments. With that being said, though, there still might be some controversial picks on this list of mine. Regardless, I’m still going to share with you what I think that the ten best twists that have ever been used in the game are and why I think that.

#10 This twist appeared in Survivor seasons Cook Islands, Fiji, China, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes versus Villains, Nicaragua, Redemption Island, South Pacific, One World, Philippines, Caramoan, and Blood versus Water. Some fans don’t like it that much, for reasons I don’t fully understand. And while seasons without it still sort of have it, I have decided to include it anyways. I’m talking about the final three. They helped bring an end to the bring a goat to the end strategy that was easy to accomplish. (People think that you can still bring two goats to the end, but considering how much harder it is to do, you have to wonder why they take their alliance to the end instead of hated contestants.) While a tie could cause problems potentially, it still seems much better in my mind that three people get to plead their case to the jury instead of just two. It adds another layer to the game and we finally get to see a more interesting final tribal council that is otherwise not part of the game. The reason it isn’t that well received is why I only have it at number ten.

#9 This twist appeared in Survivor Africa alone. It only appeared once in the show and probably never will appear again. That’s a reason why it is so low on the list. But it’s still a favorite of mine and I wish that they still used it instead of methods they use now. I’m talking about the natural quiz tie-breaker. It remains my favorite tie-breaker ever used in the game. And it only appeared once. But it seemed more fair than any other tie-breaker that they’ve ever used. It wasn’t randomly drawing a rock if you weren’t even a part of the tie. It wasn’t random, throwaway votes suddenly becoming important. And while the fire-making tie-breaker is also a great twist, it wasn’t used as often as this one would have been, if it only applied more often to another group of people. All you had to know was natural related trivia related to the area you were playing in. It wasn’t luck based. It wasn’t affected by previous votes. It wasn’t caused by someone flipping during a revote. And this great twist was only ever used once.

#8 This twist appeared in Survivor seasons Samoa and One World. It informally appeared in various other seasons to, but they are generally not counted. It makes the game more fun in a way even if it is unusual. I’m talking about do it yourself challenges. I’ll admit, when they first did it, you’d think that it was strange that only part of the tribe was there. You’d think that they were doing a tribe swap instead, but they weren’t. I love the way it works. The contestants are just doing the challenges themselves and you don’t have annoying Jeff Probst yelling at everyone about what we can see clearly on the show. (That’s the only thing he does that I don’t like, by the way. Well, that and only replying to one of my awesome tweets. And trust me, I always post awesome tweets on twitter. If you don’t believe me, then go on that site and follow @IamAdamDecker to see what great things I’m sure I posted. In case you couldn’t figure it out, I’m joking about most of this.) But it’s nice to see interesting challenges, even if they are unusual like this. And in case you are wondering what else counts as an unofficial do it yourself challenge, look up distress signal on www.survivor.wikia.com or rewatch the fourth episode of Survivor: Palau.

#7 This twist appeared in Survivor seasons All-Stars, Vanuatu, Palau, Guatemala, Cook Islands, Fiji, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes versus Villains, Nicaragua, Redemption Island, South Pacific, One World, Philippines, Caramoan, Blood versus Water, and I even know that it’s in Cagayan. It’s become such a common part of the game, that I’m not sure that a lot of people even consider it a twist. I’m talking about an expanded cast. An expanded cast means more than sixteen players in a single season. I’ve counted the seasons even if the people that made it more than sixteen were returning players. This twist made the show much more interesting and gave the show some more interesting players in the game. I’m not sure if there are any problems with an expanded cast of more players. It is weird to see a medical evacuation and tribal council in the same episode, but I still think that more players in a single season makes the game much more interesting than it already is.

#6 This twist appeared in Survivor seasons Vanuatu, Palau, Guatemala, Cook Islands, Gabon, Heroes versus Villains, and Nicaragua. It almost appeared in Samoa and sort of appeared in Pearl Islands, although I don’t count Pearl Islands as an official appearance of the twist due to the unusual nature in which it appeared. It always seems to help level the playing field. I’m talking about a double tribal council. When it appears, both of the two tribes have to vote a player out. This normally helps during seasons where there is a strong majority tribe that wouldn’t otherwise lose a member. While it is a bit strange to see two different people from two different tribes getting voted out, it is more interesting than seeing the same tribe loose over and over again, which is what typically ends up happening without this twist.

#5 I will not tell you right away what season this twist first appeared yet, because it will be a dead giveaway as to what the twist is. There is currently only one season with the twist so far, although it will probably appear again in the future. Many people were probably against the twist when they heard that it might happen. Some thought that it might ruin Survivor or do even worse things. But it provided us with a great season. I’m talking about blood versus water. Also known as returning players versus their family members, this twist did not destroy relationships that people have had for quite some time. It produced a great season that we otherwise never would have seen. We knew that Pagonging wouldn’t happen in a season like this. I still don’t know if Pagonging is a problem or not. But when I watch the first season this summer (if not sooner), then I’ll let you know my thoughts about it and its lasting impact on the game. I could do a special article about that beforehand, but I’m sure that I’ll keep coming up with articles until February 26, which is when the next season of Survivor premieres. Then you’ll see me constantly rambling about stuff instead of talking about what I should be, such as number five on the list of best twists on the show. I’m not sure how it might reappear in the future or even if it will, but I think that it is great. They might even try it with new players versus their families, but I think that it worked better for us to know who some of the people were. While not every returning player twist works out that well (improving on weak social game is what brought back Coach and Ozzy, that twist not making much sense to anyone), this one does and one other will be on this list as well. This twist is so good (SPOILER ALERT!), they are already considering doing this for the 29th season, but I don’t know how true that rumor might be and also don’t know much about what will happen in the next two seasons after the upcoming one. (END SPOILER)

#4 This twist appeared in Survivor seasons All-Stars, Philippines, and Cagayan. Since there isn’t much in common between them, you might already know what it is. Survivor started with only two tribes in every season. But then things got interesting when they added a third tribe to the mix. That is why it is on my list of best twists. A third tribe, like other twists mentioned, adds an element to the show not otherwise seen. You get to see two tribes safe from tribal council instead of just one. You can get more out of the game with three tribes than you can with just two. And it hasn’t been used often enough. Hopefully, this coming season will live up to the standards of the previous seasons that had three tribes. They are much better than the four tribes seasons where the high number of tribes only lasted for a few brief episodes as they shuffled more around into the two tribes that we’re more familiar with and used too much. But three tribes work wonders and should appear more often than it has already.

#3 This twist has only appeared in one season. I want it to appear in many future seasons as often as it is needed to. It pretty much defined the opening of the season it appeared in and probably helped make it become the great twist that we remember it is today. I’m talking about returning players who were medically evacuated. While most people hate the idea of one returnee per tribe seasons, I quite enjoyed how this twist made it the people that were pulled unwilling due to medical issues beyond their control. Those are the people that you probably want to return just because it wasn’t really their fault that they were medically evacuated (unless they chose to do that, which I think still counts as a medical evacuation since they wouldn’t want to do that under any normal circumstance). To see them return for another chance at the game is great. Unresolved issues are finally played out again. I constantly update my groupings of how they would return in future seasons should this twist ever be done again. So far, Erik, Bruce, and Joe, the post merge medical evacuations are on one list, and the other two lists get confusing. I could put Mike Borrasi, Shamar, and Gary, the males, in one group while putting Kourtney and Dana, the females, in the other group. Or I could put Gary, Kourtney, and Dana, who never went to tribal council, in one group while putting Mike Borrasi and Shamar, who did go to tribal council, in the other group. Another option would be Mike Borrasi and Gary, the older players, on one list, with Kourtney, Dana, and Shamar, the other three left, on the other list. If I went with the episode they were pulled, Shamar, Dana, and Gary would be on one list and Kourtney and Mike Borrasi, would be on the other list. The three types of players that get medically evacuated on Survivor are strong players, old players, or just random players. If I went by that, Mike Borrasi, Bruce, and Gary would be on the first list of older players. Shamar and Joe would be on the second list of stronger players. Dana, Erik, and Kourtney would be on the third list of random or other players. So, if another player were medically evacuated in this coming season, it would be best for it to be a premerge medical evacuation. A female could easily join Kourtney and Dana. They could join Mike Borrasi and Shamar if they went to tribal council before they were pulled from the game. If it’s an older player, they could join Mike Borrasi and Gary on that list. They could join Mike Borrasi and Kourtney if they were medically evacuated in one of the first three episodes of the season. If it is one of the stronger players, then I might have to put it on the other list I mentioned. There’s a whole tribe of strong players this season, so we have yet to see if one of them will be medically evacuated or not. If they ever do this twist again, I don’t know how many tribes there will be. But hopefully, they do, because if they don’t do a second chances season ever, then they at least need to bring back medically evacuated players on a one returnee per tribe season. Hopefully, they can all be as great as Survivor Philippines was.

#2 This twist appeared in Survivor seasons Samoa, Nicaragua, Redemption Island, South Pacific, One World, Philippines, Caramoan, and Blood versus Water. It is the exact opposite of a bad twist that I mentioned earlier, although I forget where I ranked that in my bottom ten worst Survivor twists. Regardless, they introduced a better format to the game that goes hand in hand with the expanded cast twist. I don’t know why it didn’t appear sooner than the nineteenth season, but I’m glad that it is now a regular part of the game. I’m talking about an early merge. I don’t know if early merge typically refers to the day of the game which it occurs (although I’m not that familiar with which days are happening in which episodes ever since they got rid of the standard three days is one episode seasons) or if it simply refers to the number of players still left in the game. Either way, an early merge makes the game better and more than likely prevents an Ulong situation where they lose so many challenges that they don’t have a merge since only one player is left in the game. There is then more post merge to enjoy in the game and all sorts of craziness in the individual game itself as opposed to the tribal part of the game which isn’t always good depending on how much one tribe was dominating in the game before. I enjoy nice chances to the game that help improve it, and the early merge is definitely one of them.

#1 Okay, I’ve probably already mentioned my love for this twist in the past. I’ve already told you what I thought the best twist in Survivor history is. In fact, it has appeared in more seasons than it hasn’t, depending on how you classify it. The seasons it appeared on is Africa, Marquesas, Amazon, All-Stars, Vanuatu, Guatemala, Panama, Cook Islands, Fiji, China, Micronesia, Gabon, Nicaragua, One World, Caramoan, Blood versus Water, and will more than likely appear in this coming season. I’m talking about the tribe swap. Best twist ever. It has since come from a meeting of three different tribe mates from both tribes in the third season to a welcomed part of the game that many people come to expect. I love how it redefines tribe lines and shakes up the whole game. While some ways they’ve done it are better than others, I definitely think that it is great regardless of how it appears. A shake-up in the game is always a good way of keeping people on their toes about what’s next and coming up in the future. This is why I have it listed as the best twist in Survivor history.


I hope that you enjoyed this blog post of mine. My apologies if I spoiled something that might not even be true that you didn’t want to know. I hope that my friends do more of their podcast soon because they haven’t finished doing the last season and haven’t even started with info for any future season. Sorry that this wasn’t posted on Wednesday because I ran out of time that day and figured that with only one day out of the week to update my blog, I should have enough information to keep doing posts until the new season starts on February 28th. Hopefully, I’m done with all the posts that I promised to post. I will do a cast assessment this season and hope that one of the readers of this blog will post a link to the TV guide preview of the new season because I don’t have much information to go on regarding where I’d rank the contestants. But I would post it the Sunday before the new season starts. Remember that Lent will be happening so some of my posts will be a bit late and hopefully I don’t have any problems regarding cats when I try to eat breakfast and watch the show in the morning. And I’ll post more information about whether I can still do updates normally here or if neither google nor the NSA care about my blog posting problem. Since it’s easily resolved, I’m not sure that I care that much myself. I just hope that what I tried to do works. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.