Survivor megathread

[Sol]

Just saw this lol.

Jeff Probst should be canned.

[Sol]

I kind of got disillusioned from Survivor after Season 39 so I don't watch anymore, but I have been making fake Survivor seasons in spreadsheets to get my fix if y'all'd be interested in seeing them.

[Sol]

#russellshouldhavewonsamoa

lol

[Sol]

#russellshouldhavewonsamoa

lol

In interest of not drive-by posting---why? He completely alienated the Galu (and Jaison to boot). You can't win if you don't have a strong social game (or if your social game is outshone by other players, as Aubry sadly learned).

[Sol]

Funny115 sucks, y'all. Mario Lanza is a good writer and some of it is enjoyable but he has kind of an obnoxious gatekeepy attitude and some of his takes--like Brad Culpeper as a maligned hero--are pretty bad.

[Sol]

The common denominator with all the tinkering the show has done in recent years is that it's usually done with the intent to advantage certain kinds of players--namely dominant alpha-types. The Final four firemaking twist (which also removes a round where idols wouldn't work), the new jury format, more and more idols and advantages, extinction island, etc. etc. all benefit players who are usually considered "threats." (Heck, you could even claim the same thing about the final 3, since it was clearly an effort to avoid the "robbed g.oddess" phenomenon.)

It's pretty clear that Probst really dislikes winners who have a less flashy skillset and who get where they are more through flying under the radar rather than through immunity wins or idol plays.

I don't think you can get rid of UTR winners entirely--I stopped watching Island of the Idols for obvious reasons midway through but it's my understanding that Tommy got to the end largely on that sort of social skillset--but you can reduce their prevalence through these changes, which functionally mean that players have much less room to maneuver against threats. I think about someone like Victoria Baamonde, who in many respects controlled much of the EOE postmerge game but who wasn't able to outmaneuver Rick's preponderance of idols AND Chris returning from the edge.

In this light, the shorter season works in basically the same way. The quicker pace means that there simply won't be enough time for people to identify the threats and really calibrate their moves against them--it's as if Vanuatu would have ended before Chris had time to overthrow Ami's power structure.

There's been a lot of discourse in recent years about the fact that Survivor hasn't had a female winner in six seasons. Although some of that is probably down to luck, I think it's fair to say that the huge number of idols (which women are less likely to find, likely related to gendered divisions of labor) strongly disadvantages women players. It's not a coincidence that number of female and male winners were basically balanced pre-Cambodia or so--and then after Cambodia there's basically only been 1.*

There's also the fact that under-the-radar strategies are much more common among women players, for reasons which likely relate to gender roles (i.e. tribes are more likely to boot a woman who asserts herself than a man, and a good player will know that and work behind the scenes instead). That's certainly not true of all women players or even most women players, but in the aggregate it's true.

Basically, I'm concerned that this change will continue to advantage certain kinds of players over others. I don't want Ozzy or Ben to win every season, but these kinds of changes make that more and more likely to be the case.

*32 was filmed before 31.

[Sol]

I hate-watched the premiere. Survivor is unfortunately a withered husk of what it once was.

Hate to say that I agree with SnowLabrador, but he's right. It's especially baffling since IMO Survivor had basically cracked the code in terms of game structure from around 25-32 or so--moderately frequent idols, occasional low impact advantages, and unpredictable timing and frequency of swaps. Plus a cast which came to play but had a good diversity in terms of survivor knowledge. Recent seasons have gotten too chaotic, with too many twists and a monolithic superfan cast that results in the same outcome of threats either getting defenestrated or idoling to the end.

[Sol]

Keith Nale, from Survivor: San Juan Del Sur and Survivor: Cambodia, passed away yesterday at 62

https://fox59.com/news/national-world/survivor-contestant-keith-nale-dies-at-62-family-says

Keith is the 14th former Survivor contestant to pass away.

Very sad to see--he was so much of what made San Juan del Sur great.

[Sol]

Also, you could have a solid returnee season just with 0-vote finalists now, that fits all casting requirements.

Of course, Spencer, Noura, and Sugar are never coming back.

[Sol]

For the offseason, a question for the forum: who do you think the best player ever is?

[Sol]

I understand why narratively it's unsatisfying, but you can't play the way that Russell did and win the game, ever. Juries vote for who they like and respect the most and his social game meant that he was certain to lose. I also think it's a little peculiar that people are sore about Russell never winning despite the glaring flaws in his social game, but aren't embittered about Amanda Kimmel never winning, despite the fact that she came far closer in Micronesia and had the same timing-based disadvantages as Russell. She's certainly miles ahead of him in skill and would have had a good shot of making it to the end without a heroes pagonging in HvV too.

[Sol]

This may be dangerous to post, as I don't want to be spoiled on anything, but I'm a long-time fan of Survivor. Grew up watching it with my parents up to a point.

Some years ago, I started watching the show from the first season, with plans to finally get up-to-date (the last season I remember watching live was One World, which was painful from my recollection), and just recently finished up Heroes vs. Villains (S20).

Might give brief thoughts on seasons 1-20 if anyone's interested.

Planning on starting up season 21 (Nicaragua) next time I have a decent chunk of time off work.

Would be interested in hearing those takes!

Hiding this in case you don't want to see this; general words about the seasons you haven't seen below (i.e. are they good or bad, no substantive spoilers):

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

You have a pretty interesting road ahead! Some of the early 20s seasons are fairly rough (including 21 tbh), but the later 20s to early 30s is the strongest run in the show's history IMO. The later 30s are more hit or miss (and I would recommend outright skipping 39). I've been pretty tuned out of the show until pretty recently because of 39, but it seems like the 40s so far have been hit or miss as well.

If Nicaragua is a little too rough, here are seasons you haven't seen which could be a lot of fun:
-25: Breaks the run of weak seasons in the early 20s (I actually really like South Pacific but it's kind of an acquired taste) with fun and surprising stories and gameplay.
-27: Quite fun season with an unusual twist (pairs of relatives, one of whom are returning players).
-28: Probably the most popular season since Heroes vs. Villains. Really exciting and fun, very dynamic gameplay. Legendary among Survivor seasons, sort of a modern Pearl Islands.
-37: A standout season, fun characters and very memorable.