Episode 31.2

Sometimes you may notice that I mention potential spoilers. I’m not entirely sure if all of them are spoilers are not. I’ll try to avoid them as often as possible. But, there are times that I might talk about them for one reason or another. Speaking of which… SPOILER. I have heard from supposedly spoiler free sources that there will be a third tribe sometime this season. Speculation is that sometime soon there will be a switch from two tribes to three. I don’t know yet if that is true. My guess is that the third tribe is a potential scab tribe formed from the other two tribes as they lose members somehow. Maybe a random swap into groups of three will lead to a reward challenge where the losing group has to be the new one. END SPOILER.

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Brad Culpepper Blood vs. Water Max Dawson Worlds Apart Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Mike Holloway Worlds Apart Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Shane Powers Panama Carolyn Rivera Worlds Apart Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Natalie Tenerelli Redemption Island Sabrina Thompson One World Stephanie Valencia Redemption Island Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

Here’s a reminder of the contestants in the game. Remember that I will slowly take out contestants who didn’t make the cast and cross out those that did when they are eliminated. I’ll probably post this near the beginning of every blog post of mine this season. Every eliminated player will be crossed out, but only those that didn’t make the cast will be removed over time. I hope that this isn’t confusing to anyone, but I’ll probably hear if it is. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Kelley Wentworth talks about how she found the hidden immunity idol which I’m guessing is a real one. Jeff Varner talks about the side that he sided with. I notice the old school versus new school rivalry on at least this tribe. I wonder if this will be a recurring theme throughout the season.

In the second segment of the show, Joe talks about how he is trying to change his game this time around. People talk about the various annoyingness of Abi-Maria. Andrew talks about his wife, but other people get confessionals about it, which is a bad sign for him.

In the third segment of the show, Abi-Maria continues to be ostracized on her tribe and has a bit of a fight with Peih-Gee. She is accepted by some members. We then get to the immunity challenge that I think that Bayon will win. I’m not sure yet if they will. Bayon does, in fact, win the close challenge after a minor error by the other tribe on the puzzle.

In the next segment of the show, Jeff Varner does his best to pick off either Spencer or Shirin as he felt that they are both huge threats in the game. They learn of this and try to turn the tables, but it doesn’t look like this will happen. They both try to pull in Woo, but he just rejects them both. Then we get to tribal council. It seems like a lot of people are possibly repeating their previous seasons and thus their previous mistakes. The last episode proves this. This almost defeats the purpose of a second chance season in a way. Shirin is the unfortunate person that gets the boot in this episode.

On the next Survivor, we see a brand new twist that I talked about in the spoiler section of this blog post. It is now safe for you to go back and read it if you didn’t before. I’ll do my best to either never talk about potential spoilers or put them in appropriate sections like I did.

Total confessional count: Jeff Varner- 8, Abi-Maria- 7, Woo- 2, Kelley Wentworth- 6, Kimmi- 2, Joe- 3, Peih-Gee- 3, Kelly Wiglesworth- 3, Spencer- 8, Kass- 3, Jeremy- 3, Keith- 2, Terry- 2, Shirin- 6, Ciera- 2, Monica- 1, Stephen- 3, Andrew- 3, Tasha- 2.

New confessionals this episode: Kass- 1, Jeremy- 1, Keith- 0, Terry- 1, Shirin- 4, Ciera- 0, Monica- 0, Stephen- 1, Andrew- 1, Tasha- 0, Jeff Varner- 5, Abi-Maria- 3, Woo- 1, Kelley Wentworth- 2, Kimmi- 0, Joe- 1, Peih-Gee- 2, Kelly Wiglesworth- 1, Spencer- 5.

It looks like Monica is at the bottom of the confessional count, still at only one confessional. Jeff Varner and Spencer have the highest number thus far. It makes me wonder if Spencer’s was just a boost due to him being a target and Jeff Varner by being the main reason he was targeted. Tasha, Keith, Ciera, Monica, and Kimmi all lacked confessionals in this episode. Shirin had 4 confessionals this episode and 6 total. I’m not sure what to make of the numbers at the moment. I’m not sure what to make of Jeff Varner’s edit at the moment. Is it good or bad? He is currently my pick to win, although a lot of others are also people that I’d like to win. I’m guessing that the best edit this season will go to the person who overcomes previous mistakes. It is weird that so many people don’t have many confessionals yet. By the time the merge happens, we’ll see whose low numbers stick. Low numbers after the merge are typically a very bad sign. But high numbers before a merge can be a bad sign too since they show some contestants while they still can. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor: Cambodia Premiere

Wow, there is so much to say about this season in question. I’m glad that a fan like me could help choose the players, even if every fan isn’t going to get their choices all picked. I still think that we have an interesting season ahead of us and I’m looking forward to it. When I think about it, I believe that 15 of the people that I voted for made the season. I just hope that I don’t write off the other 5 that I didn’t vote for. I still don’t know for sure who I’d want to win. But I can figure that out as the season goes by. I’m just glad that we are seeing a lot of great people play again.

You know, since there was a vote that decided the cast, I might as well mention what seasons are still in play and what seasons were eliminated by popular vote. Africa, Redemption Island, South Pacific, and One World had no players voted into the game. The seasons that are in play this time are Borneo (one player), Australia (two players), Pearl Islands (one player), Panama (one player), China (one player), Tocantins (one player), Samoa (one player), Philippines (one player), Blood versus Water (two players), Cagayan (four players), San Juan del Sur (three players), and Worlds Apart (two players). Time will tell just which seasons will do well this season. One would think that given Australia’s good track record with returning players that somebody from it will be in the finale episode this season. If Jeff Varner doesn’t make it that far, I’ll be disappointed. There’s a lot of people that I hope make it far. Other people, you’d be interested in seeing how their positions would affect the game in the long run. I’ll mention interesting things as the season progresses.

Now the interesting thing about season 31 is that they filmed season 32 before they did season 31. I’ve learned some potentially interesting information about season 32. SPOILER. You see, season 32 is rumored to be another brain versus brawn versus beauty season. There are two rumored contestants already. One of them is Scott Pollard. He’s some type of sports player. For some odd reason, every season with new players since Philippines (except Caramoan) has brought us some sort of sports player in the cast. I’m pretty sure Survivor 32 will have an all new cast. Caleb Reynolds, who was on Big Brother and made it pretty far before being blindsided by the Hitman at the final four, is another rumored contestant. Those are the only rumors I’ve heard about it so far and I’m not going to look up more fearing that I’ll learn things about it that I wish I didn’t know. That’s how I found out that John won Caramoan before I even knew the name of the season. The fact that they switched the order of the seasons and the rumors that they will also film Survivor 33 during the summer of 2015 makes me wonder if there’s a tie for the win for Survivor 32 and Survivor 33 will have the tied contestants fighting against each other in a one returnee per tribe season. But that’s mere speculation. I also have no idea if So Kim’s sister will be on Survivor 32 or not, but I think that she might be. END SPOILER.

I have wondered what they could potentially do for alternates this season. It’s possible that they didn’t use alternates this season or that any alternates were kept secret from people. I have the feeling that nobody was replaced and you have to wonder if the next highest in the poll would have been the first alternate. I also speculate that the tribe division could be a bit crazy this season. Without knowing the tribes as of the writing of this paragraph, I feel that they would separate not only people from the same season, but also potential pairs who have never actually worked together before. Woo and Stephen, for instance, might be on separate tribes at the start of the game. There may also always be fan theories that people with higher votes would be on one tribe, but we might never know why they put a tribe that way or not.

I even had a dream about Survivor: Cambodia. Kimmi said that in Australia, she would have wanted to play a day naked like Richard Hatch. Only that didn’t end up happening. I do wonder if that could happen again this season even if her birthday didn’t happen during the filming dates. Now, I’m wondering why I even have this paragraph. But I’ve decided to keep it.

Here’s a list that I might do regarding all the contestants from this season, including those that failed to make the cast. I will gradually cross out the ones that get eliminated from the game as time goes on. I don’t know how long I’ll keep the contestants who aren’t on the season as they didn’t get enough votes to get in the game. They could always be on the list, or I might get rid of them over time. The contestants that made the cast will always be on the list, just crossed out, while some of the names that you already see as crossed out will be removed over time. I’ll mention it at least twice in this particular blog post. Anyways, the list will start in the next paragraph. I got the list originally from Wikipedia.

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Brad Culpepper Blood vs. Water Max Dawson Worlds Apart Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Mike Holloway Worlds Apart Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Shane Powers Panama Jim Rice South Pacific Carolyn Rivera Worlds Apart Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Natalie Tenerelli Redemption Island Sabrina Thompson One World Stephanie Valencia Redemption Island Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

Now at this point in the blog, I have looked up the then recently released information on the tribes for the season. It looks like Andrew, Ciera, Jeremy, Joe, Kass, Keith, Kimmi, Monica, Stephen, and Tasha are all on one tribe, meaning that Abi-Maria, Jeff Varner, Kelley Wentworth, Kelly Wiglesworth, Peih-Gee, Shirin, Spencer, Terry, Vytas, and Woo are on the other tribe. I am not at all surprised that they have split up a lot of the contestants who originally played on the same season by putting them on different tribes. I think that I had predicted that this would happen earlier. I wonder why they put Jeremy and Keith on the same tribe. I do wonder if they split apart other people who could have been potential pairs. I mean, Jeff Varner and Andrew probably would work well together having been eliminated after the merge due to reasons mostly out of their control, and they are starting out on separate tribes. Vytas and Kass, who were eliminated due to losing incredibly close challenges have also been put on separate tribes. But they put Kass and Ciera, two well known flippers, on the same tribe. It also seems like the time frame one originally played the game in has also been considered when dividing the tribes. They also separated people who originally placed the same.

I do wonder about the twelve contestants who didn’t make the cast regarding their potential future with the show. You’d think that any or even all of them could return to the game in the future. Imagine if they became the favorites tribe of a fans versus favorites season. I doubt for sure that it would happen like that, and not just because there’d be one too many man and woman. (Hmm. I wonder if the extra pair could be on a one returning player per tribe season. It would make me wonder more about the rumors of at least one other Survivor season being filmed this summer. Those are just rumors.) But I shouldn’t speculate that much. I just hope that I’ll see some of the, ahem, rejects from this cast in future seasons. I mean, just Shane has been cut enough from other casts.

Now while I’m still rambling and not to the actual start of this episode, I might as well reveal who my favorite to win this season is. While there’s a lot of cast to like and a lot of players that I probably will support regardless, you may have noticed in a previous post that I picked three that I think would become finalists this season. Those three were Jeff Varner, Terry, and Kelly Wiglesworth. My favorite to win would be among those three. I predict that Jeff Varner will win. Will I be right? Who knows? Well, some people already know. But, Jeff Varner will be my favorite to win for now.

Here’s something else that I noticed. You know how Stephen helps with Rob has a Podcast, right? Well, is he still going to help with this upcoming season? I don’t think that he should because he might end up accidently revealing spoilers about it. He might have already done that. SPOILER. He said that Andrew would go home before the merge. Whether that was a legitimate spoiler or not, I do not know. He might have actually said that before filming started, although, the news of him saying it was after the season’s filming ended. END SPOILER. So I don’t know if Rob will have to be careful having him on the podcast or if it would be best avoided until either his elimination (should he be eliminated) or the end of the season. You wouldn’t think that production would allow him to podcast again until after this season. You wouldn’t know what he might accidently say.

There’s something else that I’m wondering. Is the name of this season Second Chance or Cambodia? Which one is it? It might be the first season since the twelfth to have more than one name. I never really know what to call seasons like that. But, I will say that it should hopefully be official when the first episode airs.

My apologies if I ever ramble too much before getting to the actual point of this blog post. I seem to do that in every recap of an episode. I’m not sure if I’ll ever find a way to stop rambling. I don’t do that in my TV blog (except for the occasional opening paragraph), but I do that in other blogs too. Hopefully, people who don’t like my ramblings can just skip to the part where the actual post begins. I’ll always mention when my ramblings are done right before the actual episode starts. I also don’t know if I’ll be live tweeting any of the season or not. I might have run out of things to say on twitter (possibly, but maybe not) but I more importantly need this laptop to record other shows on at 8 (if ABC comes in at the time, that is).

While I’m still rambling, I might as well go through the cast and mention what previous mistakes the cast has to overcome to do better in this game. Kelly Wiglesworth needs to stick with an alliance to succeed this season. Kimmi needs to learn how to work well with others. Jeff Varner needs to hope that his mischievous ways don’t get the better of him. Andrew needs to avoid pissing off the wrong people. Terry needs to work better at the strategy part of the game. Peih-Gee needs to get along with people and avoid clashing with the wrong people. Stephen needs to stand out on his own without the help of other players. Monica needs to stand out in general if she’s to be seen as a serious contender to win. Abi-Maria needs a better attitude to get along with other players.

Vytas needs to avoid sticking out with other strong players and find his own identity. Ciera needs to learn when is and isn’t a good time to make a huge move. Tasha needs to avoid being seen as a threat. Spencer needs to work well with others. Kass needs to learn how to avoid making enemies. Woo needs to learn how to make his own moves. Kelley Wentworth needs to find friends at the beginning and hope that they stay on her side. Jeremy needs to avoid being seen as a threat. Keith needs to improve his social game. Joe has to find some way of not being too strong, but still be worth keeping throughout the early game. Shirin basically has to avoid being annoying or too weird. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we get to a dramatic introduction. Not everyone gets a confessional going into the game, but most people do. As usual, I’m eating supper during the episode so I might not be able to write as much as I would want to. At least I’m not on twitter right now. The game starts out with an unofficial challenge of gathering supplies. Is this a real challenge? I don’t know for sure. Ta Keo wins the rice, despite the efforts of Kelly Wiglesworth. I guess that the difference between Kelley and Kelly this season is whether or not they have a second e in their name. Maybe one of them will be short lived in the game.

In the second segment of the show, Woo talks about winning the sort of official challenge. Two of the older school players talk about how the game has changed. Abi-Maria randomly talks about a bag of hers and we see some of her old self appear in the game. We get to Bayon next. They seem a bit more laid back than the other tribe. Also, remember to take a shot of alcohol every time Keith spits. Jeremy forms, or at least tries to form, an early alliance with Andrew, Tasha, Stephen, and Joe, at least. Stephen complains that he’s a Fishbach out of water. I imagine the twitter hashtag is already trending.

In the third segment of the show, Vytas flirts with various women on his tribe. I don’t think that Shirin likes Vytas that much so she works on getting him eliminated. I don’t remember Jeff Varner being this strange the first time, but it has been a while since I’ve seen Survivor. Abi-Maria finds her missing bracelet in Peih-Gee’s bag so I guess we know who will be like RC to Abi-Maria this season. What is the real story, anyways? It is interesting how so many people are being extra cautious this season because it is a second chance season. Stephen becomes the first person to look for an idol.

In the fourth segment of the show, Kelley Wentworth looks for the idol on her tribe. She learns of the idol at challenges twist. Also, the tribes prepare for the challenge. There’s some yoga going on. Not much happens this time.

In the fifth segment of the show, Kelley Wentworth misses a chance to grab the idol at the immunity challenge. But, she’s still the only one in the game who knows of the twist. Actually, while her tribe is distracted at the challenge, she quickly grabs the idol and I don’t think that anybody notices. Bayon ends up winning the first challenge. Tribal council happens immediately after the challenge. Does anyone else notice that they give confessionals about this? It seems to me like they are spoiling who survives the tribal council since there probably wouldn’t be time to talk about it afterwards. Will that be the case? We’ll see. In The Quest, they didn’t end up spoiling things by doing that, but it’s still hard to tell if they did something by accident or not. Will Kelley Wentworth get to know of her idol, is in fact, real?

In the sixth segment of the show, we get to tribal council and we talk about tribe dynamics. People talk about what alliances might exist and how the game has changed from old school to nowadays. In the end, people decide to vote out Vytas for some reason. I guess that Abi-Maria’s campaigning somehow worked. I wish there were more of a reason behind the vote. I guess his plan to charm the women turned against him.

On the next Survivor, Abi-Maria continues her terrible ways and Jeff Varner tries to come up with good ways to progress in the game. But, can he avoid becoming a target when he targets other people? I hope that he can.

Total confessional count: Kimmi- 2, Joe- 2, Vytas- 2, Peih-Gee- 1, Kelly Wiglesworth- 2, Spencer- 3, Kass- 2, Jeremy- 2, Keith- 2, Terry- 1, Shirin- 2, Ciera- 2, Monica- 1, Stephen- 2, Andrew- 2, Tasha- 2, Jeff Varner- 3, Abi-Maria- 4, Woo- 1, Kelley Wentworth- 4.

Remember, as always, that my numbers are probably wrong. If you have better numbers, let me know. Just don’t take me to Survivor Sucks. Heck, you can go to a link that has the same number that their website has, but I just don’t like them that much. The lowest thus far are Peih-Gee, Terry, Monica, and Woo who only have one confessional each. Meanwhile, the highest confessionals with four a piece are Abi-Maria and Kelley Wentworth. Are those good signs for them? According to my numbers in the past, a boost at the beginning may actually be a bad sign since sometimes they just show a contestant while they can. We’ll see as we go on who is going to have long term hope in the game and who won't. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

B. B. Andersen on Survivor: Borneo

It's hard to believe that the next season of Survivor starts just a week from now. So this will be my last random blog post until this season is over. What's weird is that I have other random blog posts written already for the next hiatus. This will be the last random blog post for this hiatus and I've been rewatching Survivor: Borneo to get the notes for and about it. Enjoy my future posts about Survivor 31. And enjoy this special recap of B. B. Andersen's time on Survivor: Borneo.

We get to another blog post of mine where I remember a dearly departed Survivor contestant. Today’s contestant is B. B. Andersen from Survivor: Borneo. I will go through his time in the game and point out what made him a memorable contestant. I’ll also keep the memory of him alive by doing so. As with the first deceased player, I will be doing a drinking game with B. B. I offer the disclaimer that drinking games are played at one’s own risk and I take no responsibility for any drinking games played. The game is to take a shot every time his name is mentioned, he gets a confessional, he casts a vote, gets a vote against him, and similar things.

Greatest and Most Outrageous Moments Special

Due to the even spread of all the contestants in the special, B. B. doesn’t get much airtime. They basically show his abrasive personality and then show him getting voted out. I probably took less shots than I should have. But, I will definitely make sure that I take the shots during the actual episodes themselves. Guess that there’s not much to say regarding this. Shots taken: 13?

Episode 1: The Marooning

Here is when we get to the episodes that feature B. B. Andersen. I’ll be sure to count the number of confessionals that he had in the game and hope that it matches up with the number I already told you about when I first blogged about the first season. B. B. is introduced as a real estate developer. He goes out with Ramona to look for the water hole for the Pagong tribe. After an hour has passed, they are able to find it. B. B. starts doing a lot of work on and for his tribe, although it tends to aggravate them more than help them. This leads to arguments with Gretchen who seems concerned about him, but he is a bit bullheaded with that. He is able to use his glasses to help create fire for his tribe. He has two confessionals this episode. He is the contestant who is given the immunity idol after his tribe wins the challenge this episode. For B. B., this would be his only immunity win and only challenge win shown since the reward challenge in the next episode gets edited out. He is mentioned on the next time on Survivor segment. Shots taken: 6

Episode 2: The Generation Gap

I know that if I do my drinking game, I’ll be taking a lot of shots during this episode as this is when B. B. is voted out. Of course, I might just say that I’ve taken shots when I haven’t. B. B. is mentioned in the previously on Survivor segment. B. B. “helps” his tribe get stuff done. Everyone complains about him. He gets a confessional out of it (so it everyone else on the tribe it seems). He then gets two more confessionals, one about Ramona. It seems like a lot of this episode is just about people complaining about B. B. He has a disagreement about washing his shirt. He gets another confessional out of it. He then gets a confessional about wanting to leave the game. That’s five confessionals so far. He gets another after the immunity challenge where he talks about who he might vote for. Some people give reasons as to why B. B. should stay, but most want him out of the game. He winds up with seven confessionals before tribal council happens. His only vote in the game is against Ramona which gets him a confessional. He voted against the person he thought did the least around camp. Meanwhile, Gretchen, Jenna, Joel, Gervase, Colleen, and Ramona all vote against B. B. This is what gets him voted out. He then gets one last exit confessional. He leaves the game with nine confessionals that I counted this time. Shots taken: 32?

Future Episodes

So you might be wondering what I can mention about B. B. in future episodes now that he is voted out of the game. Well, obviously he appears at the reunion show. But until then, I’ll mention any reference that he has in any other episode. I probably won’t take any shots at this point as there’s no reason to keep drinking for the same bottle until the reunion show. He may be mentioned a lot at first in the next episode (simply because they are recapping his elimination), but other than that, he probably won’t be mentioned much throughout the game. Regardless, I’m still going to take notes about him.

In the third episode of the season, B. B. is of course mentioned in the previously on Survivor segment. That would make about four shots in that one segment and another when he is seen on screen during the introduction. One of Jeff’s transitional segments, something that would be nice in today’s show, mentions B. B. again. So that would be six shots in that episode.

In the fourth episode of the season, he isn’t mentioned at all. What is interesting is that the only person he cast a vote against in the game gets voted out in this episode the very next time his tribe went to tribal council. Jeff incorrectly says that she had three votes cast against her then, but in actuality, she only had two votes. I don’t expect for B. B. to be a part of any of these episodes in the future, but I’ll still include notes about them for now.

In the fifth episode of the season, as expected, the only bit of B. B. that we see is in the opening credits of the show. He’s not important to this episode and I can’t think of any interesting ways to tie him into the episode at hand.

In the sixth episode of the season, he is once again not mentioned at all and I’m including this useless paragraph. Awesome, right? I’m not sure if I’ll keep adding useless paragraphs or not throughout the rest of the game until the reunion show, but I might.

In the seventh episode of the season, the only bit of B. B. we see remains a clip of him that we see in the Survivor introduction segment. That’s all we’ll see of him and likely all we ever will see until the reunion show happens. I just hope that I can keep finding different ways of telling people that.

In the eighth episode of the season, people still in the game get videos from their loved ones (except for poor Jenna). You do have to wonder who B. B.’s loved one would have been if he were still in the game. Rumor has it that he bribed a cameraman and was already back in America having broken sequester. It’s unknown if that rumor is true or not. We don’t know who all would have broken sequester. I imagine that Jenna Moresca did in All-Stars. I don’t know who else might have.

In the ninth episode of the season, the winner of the reward challenge (and one person that the winner chooses to join them) wins a letter from home. Not much is seen of the letters. One has to wonder who B. B. would have gotten a letter from if he had lasted this long in the game.

In the tenth episode of the season, there’s yet another reward challenge that has a loved ones connection. Well, it doesn’t have to, but it probably would in the end some way. Whoever won the reward would get to call someone of their choosing. You would have to wonder who B. B. would have called if he were still in the game. He probably would have called his wife or something like that.

In the eleventh episode of the season, we get to the last reward to have a loved ones connection. Whoever won the challenge would be surprised to find their loved one on the yacht that they had won a night on. Like other rewards, you’d think that B. B.’s wife would have been the person there if he was still in the game.

In the twelfth episode of the season, the reward challenge is the only one of the season that doesn’t have a loved ones relation. But if he were still in the game, he would have seen the beginning of the season ahead of its premiere.

In the thirteenth episode of the season, B. B. is mentioned at the final four immunity challenge fallen comrades. The question relates to just the boot order of Pagong and not the whole season. Of course, I know that the boot order of the whole season is Sonja, B. B., Stacey, Ramona, Dirk, Joel, Gretchen, Greg, Jenna, Gervase, Colleen, Sean, Sue, Rudy, Kelly, and Richard. You have no way of knowing that I knew that from memory, but I did. He is also briefly seen at the rites of passage, although it wasn’t as good then as it would become later. Nowadays, we don’t even have it in the game anymore. There would be just two shots in this episode.

Episode 14: Survivor: Borneo reunion show

B. B. is introduced with the other contestants after the cold open of the reunion show. An introduction for the contestants is something that I wished still happened. He does get to talk about being the first person voted out of his tribe. He admits that it was a dumb move to “quit” the game. He also mentions alliances and how he thinks that it’s a good idea, even though it didn’t help the rest of his tribe in the end. There was a potential rivalry that might have been unseen that took place between B. B. and Joel. It doesn’t seem like there’s any footage that I saw that supports this. While on the show, he did a commercial for Reebok and the two men he did the commercial with appear briefly in the audience. I’m not sure what else there is to mention about this. Shots taken: 7?

Other Notes Regarding B. B. Andersen

Challenge history of B. B.- Quest for Fire (combined reward/immunity challenge): the contestants must lit a series of fire before the other tribe gets a chance to. B. B. won the challenge with the rest of his tribe. It makes for a great opening Survivor challenge and it’s a shame that it isn’t used anymore.

Unknown challenge (reward): won by Pagong and, thus, B. B. The challenge wasn’t seen in the episode and to me knowledge wasn’t released in any official format so it’s unknown for a fact what it was and how it went down. We just know that Pagong won the challenge. Bugging Out (immunity challenge, more commonly called the gross food eating challenge, officially called Survivor Smorgasbord): This challenge had the contestants face off to eat a bunch of gross food. This is B. B.’s only challenge loss as he would not survive past this episode’s tribal council. This challenge had every contestant having to eat just one bug (in this case, a live grub) in less everyone did. If they did all eat it, there would be a tie-breaker challenge.

A special feature on the DVD of Survivor: Borneo has B. B. doing a top ten on the Late Show with David Letterman with the rest of the cast from his season. His entry on the list, which is number nine, is this: “After being in tropical sun for a few days, chicks begin thinking you’re Brad Pitt.”

Well, those are my thoughts regarding B. B. Andersen from Survivor: Borneo. Remember that I will eventually go through other dead Survivor contestant’s time on the show as the deaths happen. For now, this means waiting until Survivor: Blood versus Water is on DVD so I can summarize Caleb Bankston’s game. I’m not sure if he’ll be next or not. But I’ll be sure to keep doing Survivor blog posts regardless of what happens. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Top Ten Tribal Councils

Well, here we are at another top ten list of mine. Today we have what I consider to be the ten best tribal councils in the show’s history. There’s a lot to choose from, but what are the ten best? How to I decide what are the best? I’ll get to that shortly.

First, as always, I need to have some rules about this top ten. #1 No season can be represented more than once on this list. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem, although it will get rid of other great tribal councils from a season in focus of the best of all of them. #2 This isn’t so much of a rule as it is a problem: since nowadays, tribal councils are remembered as crazy due to things like hidden immunity idols and the like, you may see a lot less of earlier seasons on the list, although I will do my best to put some of them on the list. #3 Craziness is basically how you get on the list. Well, that and memorableness will get you on the list. I am putting things on the list based on how good I thought the tribal council was so it had to stand out in some way. #4 As usual, things are mentioned solely based on my own opinion. One can disagree if they want to. #5 I’m only judging how good the tribal council was and pretty much ignoring both the rest of the episode and the rest of the season, should it be considered negative. Now, on to the honorable mentions

The first merge tribal council in Australia was pretty crazy, but I feel that it wasn’t crazy enough compared to future ones. The final four in Marquesas brought us an unlikely elimination, but it happened far too quickly for it to mean much. The outcast tribal council was one of a kind, but it didn’t stand out enough in my mind. Dabu’s first tribal council was very crazy towards the end, but I’m not choosing it. Tyson’s elimination in Heroes versus Villains wasn’t as stand out to one who knew spoilers and even then, there’s still a better one that season. The second tribal council in Nicaragua lead to a whole bunch of craziness, but I don’t feel that it was good enough. Bum Puzzled is an episode that brought a bunch of weirdness, but I’m not sure the tribal council stands out enough. And there was a crazy one in Worlds Apart, but it didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to. There might be another honorable mention that becomes forgettable on just the very next episode, so I won’t mention more of it since that would spoil one of my picks, if it hasn’t already. Now, on to the top ten

#10 From Philippines, we have the tribal council from the episode Dead Man Walking. If you don’t remember, this was at the final ten which had two different idols revealed. What made it good for this list is simply how crazy a moment it was. What makes it only number ten was how seemingly little it affected the overall game of the season.

#9 From Blood versus Water, we have the tribal council from the episode Rustle Feathers. If you don’t remember, this was the first episode since Marquesas in which a group of people have chosen to draw rocks to eliminate a player. It was very interesting seeing people ignore the fact that they didn’t have the numbers and still do what they wanted to in order to get ahead of the game. We’ve seen tons of moves before where people have avoided drawing rocks, but it was quite interesting seeing people intend to draw rocks again.

#8 From Borneo, we have the tribal council from the episode The Final Four. Which tribal council from that episode? It would have to be the first final tribal council, or the last tribal council from this episode. If you don’t remember this, then you probably haven’t seen it. In it, we see truly great moments. Whether it is the question that Greg asked to how Richard’s opening speech owned up to all his game play, we see some interesting Survivor moments that don’t typically occur nowadays. The Snakes and the Rats speech will forever go down as a great jury speech and still might be the best thing anyone on the jury has ever said or done. Plus, we get Richard Hatch winning at the end, a well deserved moment for him and everyone else.

#7 From Cagayan, we have the tribal council from the episode Head of the Snake. If you don’t remember, this is when the tribes have merged and we see a whole different set of moves going into play at once. There’s an idol played on one person who then plays their idol on the first person. Plus, somehow we have a blindside in the middle of it all. It’s hard to see many merge episodes besides this with as much craziness as it has.

#6 From San Juan del Sur, we have the tribal council from the episode This is Where We Build Trust. That is such an ironic name for the episode. If you don’t remember, this episode is known for its stick to the plan line and the first successful use of multiple idols. What an episode! I mean, you may not notice everything about it at first. But there is definitely a wonderful outcome to the whole thing.

#5 From Africa, we have the tribal council from the episode The gods Are Angry. If you don’t remember, this episode features the only appearance of the natural quiz tie-breaker challenge. There were two sides going into the vote: each with the same number of members. So we then have a deadlocked vote that can’t be resolved by previous votes against a person and a quiz is ultimately what determines who will get voted out. It is a crazy moment, the likes of which we’ll never see again. But it is proof that interesting moments at tribal council do occur sometimes in classic seasons.

#4 From Redemption Island, we have the tribal council from the episode You’re Looking at the New Leader of Your Tribe. I don’t think that ever before or since has the first episode of a season brought to us such a crazy tribal council. If you don’t remember, this episode is known for Ometepe’s first tribal council leading to Philip’s well known craziness and we also see a hidden immunity idol in play this early into the game. While it doesn’t actually get played yet, it does lead to so many crazy moments in just the very first episode of a season.

#3 From Heroes versus Villains, we have the tribal council from the episode Going Down in Flames. If you don’t remember, this was the first tribal council after the merge that season. This is quite an interesting moment watching the Villains take back the game that they might have never actually given up. They kept control of the game as multiple idols were used to save the members on the Villains tribe and they kept the majority afterwards. Watching the moment was pretty interesting and proves that villains on Survivor tend to do better than heroes, especially miscast heroes from this season.

#2 From Micronesia, we have the tribal council from the episode If It Smells Like a Rat, Give It Cheese. If you don’t remember, this episode featured one of the most memorable blindsides in Survivor history. Erik could have kept winning challenges and made it to the end. It’s very possible that he could have won. But he let various women talk him into redeeming himself by giving up his immunity necklace. It’s hard to believe that he actually feel for it after all the other contestants still in the game did what they had to in order to get ahead.

Now you might be wondering what I have as the best tribal council from every Survivor episode thus far. It is remembered by many as a great moment and great blindside. While it ultimately didn’t turn the game around the way it was intended to, it still produced a tribal council so crazy that they pretty much had to promote it just so we would know not to miss the episode.

#1 From Caramoan, we have the tribal council from the episode Zipping Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. If you don’t remember, this moment is when the Three Amigos, for one night at least, took control of the game. With one of them having won immunity and the other two possessing idols, we are then left with a moment where one of the main alliance will get voted out. The moment is so awesome and wonderful, even if it seems strange that certain circumstances lead to this that typically don’t happen beforehand. I still list it as the best tribal council.

Well, those are my thoughts on the top ten tribal councils in Survivor history. I hope that I didn’t miss any notable ones. I also hope that I didn’t include moments that didn’t belong. Should I have thought of more classic Survivor tribal councils to work for the list? It seems sad that I wasn’t able to think of many besides the two that are on the list. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor: Borneo- Hero or Villain

Here comes another of my installment of looking at the cast of a season and mentioning whether or not I think they were a hero or a villain (or neither). This time, I’m going through the cast of the very first season and mentioning my thoughts on them.

Sonja may be best described as a hero to me. I’m not sure if this will be accepted by everyone or not. But she played pretty well throughout her brief time in the game. It seemed pretty heroic the way that she fought throughout the game and even the way the tribe sacrificed her life in the game due to her seeming to be the weakest seems heroic to me.

B. B. probably doesn’t have characteristics of either a hero or a villain. Or does he? He seems like he was a pitiful player from the few days that he played. He kept whining about how he didn’t want to play the game which made Pagong’s first tribal council very easy. There could be arguments that he was a villain due to not going along with anybody’s plans. But, I think that neither category is the better fit for him, in my mind at least.

Stacey may possibly be the only player whose status as hero or villain isn’t decided but what she did IN the game, but by what she did OUT of the game. Her time in the game was ended after her tribe didn’t like her and voted her out. She was convinced that production got people to change their votes to eliminate her. So she sued the show. While nothing ended up happening with the lawsuit because it was settled out of court, she solidified her villain status in Survivor.

Ramona isn’t someone who stood out on her season. For me, any contestant who failed to stand out that well is probably neither a hero or a villain. That’s just my opinion at least. I don’t see any way she fits either category.

Dirk, to me, is easy to classify. He may not have wanted to make big moves in the game, but he mostly did that to get along with other people. He was nice to everyone and seems easily identified as a hero to me. He doesn’t fit other categories.

Joel was widely regarded by the women of Pagong to be very demeaning towards them, so much so that they decided to vote him out instead of someone who compared them to cows. The point is, while he may not have done that much in the game, he was certainly villainous for the moments that he stood out in it.

Gretchen may always be remembered for the way that she was voted out of the game in a most unusual way. While it may not have been clear enough why she was voted out, it was clear to me that she was a hero the way she was in the game.

Greg is the goofy, lovable player that may be one of the most well-liked contestants. I’ll admit, there could be potential arguments that he’s a villain. But to me, the way he lead his tribe, even though they didn’t win against the onslaught of Tagi, he is a hero to me.

Jenna is an example of how one’s stats as hero or villain can change in different seasons. In my mind, the first time she played, she was heroic. Now I’m not going to count her All-Stars game in this blog post. That might come in a later one. She may not have stood out that much, outside of her appearance at the first individual reward challenge, but she was a hero from what I could tell of her.

Gervase won’t be ranked in this blog post. That’s because, in my mind, his status as hero or villain wasn’t actually decided until his second time playing. So he becomes without a category his first time playing the game. Well, I can’t think of something at least.

Colleen outranked the rest of her tribe. The reasons for this might vary depending on who you are talking to. I’m not sure why all the others were picked off first, except for the Jenna boot which was strictly alphabetical. You see, the way she outlasted the rest of her tribe seemed pretty heroic to me and there’s tons of other evidence to support her heroism in the game.

Sean is all over the place with his edit. But what certainly remains clear, to me at least, is his lack of a status as hero or a villain. You see, there’s actually evidence to support both sides. One would say that the way he voted after the merge screwed people over and made him a villain. Others would say that his likability and unwillingness to offend people by his voting strategy is why he’s a hero. And that is why I can’t decide between the two.

Sue is another person that I find hard to categorize. She made moves that could put her in either category. But, even in the first season, she is probably best considered a villain. While she slipped back and forth throughout the game, she is a villain mostly due to her jury speech.

Rudy does a lot of stuff that’s unintentionally funny. The way he played the game couldn’t have been anything other than heroic to me. Production even swears that if the show were scripted, he would have been the first winner. He has a great overall edit and is an overall nice guy.

Kelly may be considered by some to be a hero because she faced off mainly against Richard, an undisputed villain. But, just because you face a villain doesn’t automatically make you a hero. If anything, everything about her edit seems to imply that she’s a villain. She turned on her alliance to further herself in the game and make herself look better to certain people on the jury. So, she’s a villain in my mind.

Richard is so obvious to classify that I almost don’t even need this paragraph. But, every cast member deserves a paragraph. Richard dominated the game from the very beginning. He knew that he would win from day one and he did. He didn’t care how he did it. After helping make the first ever alliance, he then took it all the way to the end and didn’t care how many people he might piss off. He played the best game for sure in his villainous way that almost no one else can match.

The Cast- Sonja: hero, B. B.: neither, Stacey: villain, Ramona: neither, Dirk: hero, Joel: villain, Gretchen: hero, Greg: hero, Jenna: hero, Gervase: neither, Colleen: hero, Sean: neither, Sue: villain, Rudy: hero, Kelly: villain, Richard: villain

Well, those are my thoughts on the cast of Survivor: Borneo. I hope that I made good thoughts. Did I get any wrong? Were there any that you agree with? Should there be a better third category than neither? I know that they’ll always be people who don’t fit as a hero or as a villain. I just hope that I got the rest of them right. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.