Ah yeah my version was already cut up, I thought that cut I mentioned was a commercial break as it seemed like a break in the footage. Gotcha.
To me, once Devins Christian Ozzie and Cirie all went home didn't even care about the finale I feel like modern survivor has many of the same problems that the traitors does: What makes good game play is very different than what makes good television. Aubry technically played a great game: stay under the radar and off people's shit lists, then win immunity at the right time and coast to victory. But that sort of game play isn't fun to watch. Neither is being bristly enough that people don't fear taking you to the end because they think they can beat you (Jonathan) without being so much of an asshole that people just want to get rid of you (Coach) or not really doing anything at all so people don't see you as a threat (Joe) The people providing good gameplay by doing fun moves (Devins, Christian) get taken out as they are deemed too much of a wild card/risk. Whereas the people who are actually likable and you actually want to root for (Cirie) get taken out for being too much of a jury threat. From a pure strategy standpoint, getting rid of those players is definitely the right move. But it makes for unsatisfying television and I'm not really sure how you fix that problem. I do think in hindsight, Cirie fucked up pushing the vote onto Coach and Crissy. Git rid of Aubry and Devins instead, and you've got an established alliance of Coach/Crissy/Jonathan/Steph/Joe vs Cirie/Ozzie/Rizzo. Christian, Tiff and Emily all need to join Cirie's alliance at that point to survive and she absolutely had the social game needed to flip those votes. A 6 vs 5 alliance, with her having a strong 3 person alliance inside the 6, is a better situation to be in a 3 vs 3 vs 5 others. (Not to mention, I don't see Christian/Tiff/Emily going after Ozzie, and Jonathan's alliance wouldn't have been able to blindside him because they would've had the majority, but obviously couldn't have known that). So season certainly could've gone a bit better with better gameplay, but Cirie's move made sense at the time so can't really blame her for getting it wrong.
Yep, exactly true. I had a very similar conversation with my wife last night who was really upset with who was left at the end. The thing is, Survivor is not a popularity contest nor a non-competitive reality show that is about the personalities. The show is a game, and whoever wins the game played the best game, and deserves the win. Earlier Survivor, those two types of people overlapped more often, where the people you want to win also are able to win, but as mentioned above, we're 50 seasons into this game and the gameplayers know exactly who not to let to get to the end. It's definitely the right way to play, and the right way to win, but it leads to less likable people at the end by design
I agree with both of y'all wholeheartedly. I'll add that I also think that's one of the benefits of longer seasons vs shorter season. With a shorter season, yes it can be more chaotic because there's only so much time but the benefit of a longer season is it gives people a chance to grow as a character, for people to have stories/arcs out there, yeah there's downtime but that's when people start plotting and planning and scheming....it feels rushed nowadays. People want to add to their resume and imo when moves are made sure they're made, but rarely are they felt. It's another plus I'll give to Australian Survivor, because the longer season allows for people to plan and think out the game, to put pieces in motion and watch it enfold. I know Jeff said they'd never go back to the longer seasons but I can hope lol. I wonder what the editors prefer, having all the footage of 39 days vs 26. I can only assume having 39 allows them to better edit stuff?
Related to that, I know there's a lot of discourse about all the double eliminations, and I do think that's a bit unfairly placed on Jeff or production, when do much is that is simply due to CBS only giving them 13 episodes. Sure, they could have had less players and not done double elims, but I think fans would all have preferred that it was 18 episodes instead of 13 or something
Yeah I agree. While I'm glad we don't have the typical hour long (or 40 minutes without commercials) episodes, 13 episodes still goes by super fast.
Speaking of too many players/double elims, next season seems to have 21 soooo very likely that pattern continues.
Yeah I've seen people discussing it and saying with;an odd number, how will splitting into tribes work? Possibly someone going to exile in the very first episode lol.
We need an “Idol” season and only have people who got voted out with an idol in their pocket. To fill 18 you can then go to people who used it stupidly/incorrectly.
I'm not sold on the "whoever wins the game played the best game" Did Aubry survive over Genevieve because she played a better game? Or did some of the breaks just go her way and against Genevieve? Luck is part of the game. So Aubry still deserved to win for sure. But much like with sports, the best team doesn't always win the championship. I do find the people saying Jonathan played a better game than Aubry annoying. Building social bonds is a huge part of the game. Jonathan might have done better in challenges than Aubry and made more strategic moves but you can't ignore the social aspect of the game play. (Also I think Aubry was very calculated in her strategic moves -- realizing she needed to get rid of Ozzie to break up the Cirie/Ozzie/Rizo alliance at the right time swung the whole game, so not actually clear Jonathan was actually better at the strategy pillar)
I think we just have to disagree here because yes, by definition, the team that wins the championship is the best team. The gold medalist is the best of their sport. The winner of Monopoly is the best player. There are an infinite number of ways to win Survivor, but the winner of each season is the one who played the best game for that season. I love Cirie with all my heart, but she is not one of the best players to ever play because she can not win. She is one of the best personalities, she is insanely good at the social game, she has done countless amazing things, but she can't win
Yeah I disagree when luck is involved -- like you can't say Parvati doesn't deserve to win Micronesia. But run the exact same season with the only difference is that it has a final three instead of a final two, something completely out of the players control, and most people agree Cirie wins. So sure, Parv played a better game for a season that ended in final two. But I disagree she played a better game as a whole than Cirie. I'd view the question of "who played the best game" as "who gave themselves the best shot at winning" rather than "who won"
I do think the “best game” argument sort of goes out the window when we introduce elements like people possibly going home because of a coin flip. Granted, it didn’t happen, but it COULD have. If no one had volunteered and they went to rocks for a forced coin flip, and then it landed tails, someone would have gone home completely randomly with nothing they could have done to prevent it. Luck is always going to have some part in the game and I’m fine with it in the form of tribe swaps, etc because you CAN play your way out of those situations. But sometimes in the new game you literally can’t and that’s a problem.
I like edgic because sometimes I'm way off when I'm thinking the edit is leaning a certain way and I'M blindsided by it going the complete opposite direction. Insider knowledge and abusing it in this sense is just silly and hopefully they can crack down on it, I just don't know how they'll be able to. Kalshi and similar are trash and I hope more states ban th n like Minnesota just did.
Yeah, I do a fantasy league for the bar I watch the show at every week and unfortunately that betting stuff really impacted it this year. There was one guy (we don’t know who it is) who perfectly put all his points on the correct vote out every week, was pretty obvious he was cheating or looking at one of those sites. It sucked, took a lot of the fun out of it.
glad aubry won out of the three even though i don't think her game really kicked in until the end and a lot of what she was spinning about early in the season was a bit thin. ultimately jonathan did a terrible job arguing for himself and im glad. what the fuck is wrong with stephanie lol
Been following some of the exit press interviews the final 5 have been doing. Despite being a boring player, Joe comes across as a genuinely nice person and is fun listening to talk about the game because he really is a fan. Jonathan is forever salty, now I'm seeing he's upset that he never got asked by production what his plans were for the money....was he was hoping his story of going to South America to build houses for women and children (lol) would convince people to give him the win? He has zero self awareness lol. Tiffany surprised me the most...if she returns she's someone to watch. She was my biggest head scratch, the person I was confused the most about why she got a spot on 50. I'd like to see her return.