Board 8 > Survivor: Ghost Island Topic 3 - This Cursed Season Has Matured Into A REAL Idol

(+) Yeah! (+)

Underleveled posted...

Last minute Outcast Twist and Chris wins

As bullshit as it would be...I'd almost welcome some bullshit in this season.
---

Dom is winning.
---

this is a stupid question. who cares who wins? the more important question is: what does audience member and future survivor player 10 year old Jonah think about the season?
---

GTM posted...

this is a stupid question. who cares who wins? the more important question is: what does audience member and future survivor player 10 year old Jonah think about the season?

And more importantly: what does Ja Rule have to say?
---

Inviso posted...

GTM posted...

this is a stupid question. who cares who wins? the more important question is: what does audience member and future survivor player 10 year old Jonah think about the season?

And more importantly: what does Ja Rule have to say?

And what has Boston Rob been doing for the past six months?
---

Starting my Guatemala rewatch now.
---

Brandon is a quote machine.

"Bobby Jon...is kinda dumb."

"I'm a farmer, so the first time I ever hiked 11 miles was...NEVER."

"Judd jumped out of the boat. I guess he had a premature evacuation."
---

brandon is really good, one of my faves
---

Inviso posted...

"Bobby Jon...is kinda dumb."

When Guatemala first aired I remember this quote souring me on Brandon very much right away and I never really recovered from it and hated him all season. Not quite sure why it struck such a nerve with me even back then.

But I have enjoyed him on rewatches.
---

Underleveled posted...

Inviso posted...

"Bobby Jon...is kinda dumb."

When Guatemala first aired I remember this quote souring me on Brandon very much right away and I never really recovered from it and hated him all season. Not quite sure why it struck such a nerve with me even back then.

But I have enjoyed him on rewatches.

The funny thing is that, rewatching Guatemala immediately after rewatching Palau? Brandon's 100% right about Bobby Jon, based on Ulong. >_>
---

Also I may or may not be watching the Ghost Island finale live, for the third time since I started watching the show at Pearls (previously did not watch Palau or MvGX finales live).
---

From the "Spoiler info for the unspoiled" thread...

As of about two days ago we now KNOW EVERYTHING.

Boot order
Vote counts
Who won
Immunity winner(s) (F4 for sure, 5 and 6 not as confirmed)
Etc

This season has spoiled to ridicolous levels.

---

Did that bootlist from before end up being correct?
---

As far as I know for sure it was correct up through... I wanna say Libby's boot. I don't know after that.
---

Brandon, like Gregg, also under the radar great.
---

Underleveled posted...

Inviso posted...

GTM posted...

this is a stupid question. who cares who wins? the more important question is: what does audience member and future survivor player 10 year old Jonah think about the season?

And more importantly: what does Ja Rule have to say?

And what has Boston Rob been doing for the past six months?

And who will represent survivor in the BB vs Amazing Race vs Survivor Amazing Race season?!
---

there needs to be a 30 minute segment on that on the 31 minute reunion
---

XD Jamie

"We've got a magician's assistant, a police officer, a fish monger, a gay guy, and a landscaper."

I love that Rafe's profession is "gay guy" to Jamie.
---

Oh, Gary Hawkins, you landscaper you.
---

I'm gonna beat you down, Gary Hawkins!
---

Boy the 4 horsemen/Santa Monica van boys are no dream team. Dream Team while a bro-y there were very rootable These guys are just straight assholes.
---

Wow. Like clockwork that ended lol
---

Taran has 1 hour interviews with Ryan/Ali/Johnny/Olivia, I only listened to the Olivia one, not much new except for the thought process of the Jury and just revealing things to her she may have missed, but still a fun listen, and it's not too long. He said Maddie/Kaela/Paras to come.

(Holy crap is this the largest set of post-game interviews immediately after a season?)
---

Yeah, I listened to some of the Johnny and Ryan ones, they were pretty good.
---

Time for more Guatemala!
---

So at this point in Palau, Steph had at least won two reward challenges.

She's 1/7 in Guatemala after four episodes.

Jesus Christ Steph, maybe YOU'RE the problem.
---

You mean "yall" is the problem.
---

Next time y'all lose a little less cursing off your tribe might help.
---

I asked this on my Twitter, but I'm curious to know here too: on a scale from 1-10, where would you guys rate this season prior to the finale?
---

4. Bout on par with One World but with a more fun premerge
---

Peridiam posted...

I asked this on my Twitter, but I'm curious to know here too: on a scale from 1-10, where would you guys rate this season prior to the finale?

2. It's in my bottom 4 overall. It's pretty much managed to get every aspect of production done wrong. Bad casting, bad editing, bad production choices.
---

2 or 3 for me. Im not 100% where it lands overall in relation to other seasons yet. Probably bottom 5.
---

4

Imo individual casting (had some really fun people... out premerge) was fine but as a group they didnt mesh for good tv

Still some fun moments which was okay but bad compared to other seasons of survivor. Stuff better than most other crap on tv
---

It's the worst season ive seen.... out of Samoa, HvHvH, and a few eps of Heroes vs Villains. So that doesn't mean much.

It has some really entertaining players in Jacob, Dom, Wendell, Chris, Donathon and Michael. I'd say this season had the best this tribals iv seen by far. Even when they are holding Naviti strong Michael is usually attempting some crazy shit. STRONGLY disagree with the people who say he was boring.

A lot of the rest of the cast was unfortunately forgettable, but whatevs.

I'd give this season a solid 6.5/10 for enjoyableness. I had a great time watching people sabotage themselves and get voted out or do their best to save themselves and fail all the same.

It doesn't even lose too much points for half the cast being boring, or for unfortunate decisions by the players like staying Naviti strong or Kellyn and Laurel being afraid of going against Dom (which are terrible reasons to blame the show... players are going to make their own choices and it wont be what you want or what you think they should do. Getting mad about that is begging for production interference )

It mostly loses points for the failure to realize Ghost Island's potential. I really think they had something special here. I'm not a super fan with knowledge of history of the game, but immediately the majesty of Ghost Isand was missed. I don't feel like I saw anything cool on Ghost Island. Like Jacob commented on all of the snuffers hanging off a roof but it was just a quick shot of a bunch of clutter and then over. Do they even show it anymore? I never notice it during episodes but this should be really cool stuff to present. I'm more impressed by the way challenges look or even the random shots of nature they give us. How did production fail so hard at making GI so visually distinctive?

Secondly, the gameplay implications of GI have fallen flat

The first two episodes were good in selection - there was strategy in who they picked to go, and it had a very real effect. They miss tribal which is huge. It protects them but also precludes them from being involved. I totally understand why this couldn't cotinue too much further into the game, but they didn't replace it with something equally interesting... they basically gave up on the concept all together.

Sending someone meant they didn't miss anything important. They'd be back for competitions and for tribal. They missed some socializing time which probably matters in the game but does not translate to he viewer. Selection also disappeared. Because of so many swaps, the tribes would never agree on who to send, so it would go to rocks. Either they shouldnt have swapped so mub to establish more unity on tribes or they should have made rocks not an option. They have to choose either by majority or unanimously or suffer a penalty.

Actually going to Ghost Island has proven useless as well. It's almost always been no game or game of chance which is boring as hell. Game of chance risking your vote would be fine once or twice but when it's every time that you get to play, and the alternative is just not playing... weak

The reward should be so much much more interesting. This season suffers from somehow not having many interesting advantages and also having a lot of idols... which don't even come from Ghost Island.

imo this is the biggest miss of the season. This was a great opportunity to try lots of small advantages and move away from ridicuously powerful hidden immunity idols.
---

I think every cycle someone should go to Ghost Island and someone should end up with some kind of advantage. Not necessarily the person that goes - Jacob having to give the legacy advantage to Morgan was great. The advantages don't need to be that strong. This advantage Wendell got in the immunity challenge was a perfect example. It could lead to him winning immunity, but it's not nearly as strong as an idol. The legacy advantage, an extra vote, a vote cancellation, a cooked meal voucher, second chance at a challenge, or an advantage making a challenge easier in some way... combined with the possibility of gifting any of this to other players. The opportunity here is endless.

I'm sure many would say "that's too many advantages! It'll ruin the game play! " but if you combined this with just removing hidden immunity idols, this would just add to social game play. It'd make for a really cool, fun, and memorable season.

Survivor was on the edge of glory with Ghost Island but instead they settled for mediocrity.
---

ClyTheCool posted...

I think every cycle someone should go to Ghost Island and someone should end up with some kind of advantage. Not necessarily the person that goes - Jacob having to give the legacy advantage to Morgan was great. The advantages don't need to be that strong. This advantage Wendell got in the immunity challenge was a perfect example. It could lead to him winning immunity, but it's not nearly as strong as an idol. The legacy advantage, an extra vote, a vote cancellation, a cooked meal voucher, second chance at a challenge, or an advantage making a challenge easier in some way... combined with the possibility of gifting any of this to other players. The opportunity here is endless.

Ghost Island definitely needs to be fixed, but this is not how. Everyone needs to have the opportunity for an advantage. The fixed order of urns was a terrible idea - it made Ghost Island a pure punishment on rounds that didn't offer an advantage. If they could pick which urn they wanted to smash it would have been much more balanced.

But now that I think about it, last episode it looked like there were like 6 urns left and no way there will be six trips to Ghost in the finale. So maybe they simply chose to smash them in order and it wasn't a rule?
---

Underleveled posted...

ClyTheCool posted...

I think every cycle someone should go to Ghost Island and someone should end up with some kind of advantage. Not necessarily the person that goes - Jacob having to give the legacy advantage to Morgan was great. The advantages don't need to be that strong. This advantage Wendell got in the immunity challenge was a perfect example. It could lead to him winning immunity, but it's not nearly as strong as an idol. The legacy advantage, an extra vote, a vote cancellation, a cooked meal voucher, second chance at a challenge, or an advantage making a challenge easier in some way... combined with the possibility of gifting any of this to other players. The opportunity here is endless.

Ghost Island definitely needs to be fixed, but this is not how. Everyone needs to have the opportunity for an advantage. The fixed order of urns was a terrible idea - it made Ghost Island a pure punishment on rounds that didn't offer an advantage. If they could pick which urn they wanted to smash it would have been much more balanced.

But now that I think about it, last episode it looked like there were like 6 urns left and no way there will be six trips to Ghost in the finale. So maybe they simply chose to smash them in order and it wasn't a rule?

Maybe the whole tribe goes to Ghost Island and they each smash an urn.
---

Espeon posted...

Underleveled posted...

ClyTheCool posted...

I think every cycle someone should go to Ghost Island and someone should end up with some kind of advantage. Not necessarily the person that goes - Jacob having to give the legacy advantage to Morgan was great. The advantages don't need to be that strong. This advantage Wendell got in the immunity challenge was a perfect example. It could lead to him winning immunity, but it's not nearly as strong as an idol. The legacy advantage, an extra vote, a vote cancellation, a cooked meal voucher, second chance at a challenge, or an advantage making a challenge easier in some way... combined with the possibility of gifting any of this to other players. The opportunity here is endless.

Ghost Island definitely needs to be fixed, but this is not how. Everyone needs to have the opportunity for an advantage. The fixed order of urns was a terrible idea - it made Ghost Island a pure punishment on rounds that didn't offer an advantage. If they could pick which urn they wanted to smash it would have been much more balanced.

But now that I think about it, last episode it looked like there were like 6 urns left and no way there will be six trips to Ghost in the finale. So maybe they simply chose to smash them in order and it wasn't a rule?

Maybe the whole tribe goes to Ghost Island and they each smash an urn.

Can't tell if sarcasm

EDIT: Never mind, I thought that was a suggestion for the whole GI twist, but actually was in reference to the finale, in which case yeah i can see that.
---

It would be a little funny if they went in order because the person before then did
---

I speculated this in a video prior to them revealing the details of GI, and I figured it would be nearly exactly what it was, I just wasn't sure if they'd have advantages every episode (didn't expect it) or some kind of method to control the craziness.

Production will likely never want a new advantage every episode, it becomes too confusing for the audience -- and I get that. And I'm glad they don't do it. I just wasn't sure how they would make use of the twist to full effect if in fact it wasn't going to be an advantage vending machine.

I actually like that you can lose a game of chance, risk something to gain something, it forces the players to weigh their options instead of being entirely linear. It means going to Ghost Island and losing is just Exile Island redux.

That said... yeah, going to GI and not getting a chance to play is a dud. It's the same thing as going to exile except you get the added benefit of the player and audience being disappointed and feeling like they're going through the motions instead of just... going through the motions. Production knew we'd be facing disappointment with those "try again next time" urns but still went ahead with it.

I don't know what the answer is to combat this inevitability but it's clear production didn't know it either. They wanted to maintain control of which twists were introduced at what time in the season (getting the legacy advantage at F12 would be odd, I guess), which meant they risked this reaction here.
---

Peridiam posted...

That said... yeah, going to GI and not getting a chance to play is a dud. It's the same thing as going to exile except you get the added benefit of the player and audience being disappointed and feeling like they're going through the motions instead of just... going through the motions. Production knew we'd be facing disappointment with those "try again next time" urns but still went ahead with it.

It's worse than going to Exile because very single time you go to Exile you at least get a chance for a clue to an idol. Maybe you do choose an empty urn sometimes, but the opportunity is always present. And even if the idol has already been found, it's not a complete waste, because if you work out the clues and find no idol, then you can deduce who might have it. Going to Ghost Island and getting a "try again" from an urn in a forced order is nothing but a punishment.
---

Personally, I would like it better if it was:

You GET an advantage, but you MUST give up your vote (or something else) to claim it.

Like, Wendell has Eriks immunity as an idol. Okay. But it would be better if, in order to USE the idol, you had to first win and give up immunity.
---

Espeon posted...

Personally, I would like it better if it was:

You GET an advantage, but you MUST give up your vote (or something else) to claim it.

Like, Wendell has Erik?s immunity as an idol. Okay. But it would be better if, in order to USE the idol, you had to first win and give up immunity.

The Erik one might be a little bit too much but overall that's not bad
---

chris' game of chance was interesting, maybe have more games like that instead of 75%-25%
---

or like cly said, maybe give them weaker advantages, like clues to an idol but not the idol itself

oh wait this is exactly exile
---

I liked the idea where the person who draws the rock has to choose who goes, so there's still a choice instead of chance
---

I think the fact that none of us can fully agree on the best way to implement this twist is a testament to how broken it is. I think this is going to go down as one of those ideas that looked great on paper and I respect the producers for trying it out but it ended up being a failure and needs to stay in the Survivor graveyard.
---

"This is the medallion of power. The producers created this twist but it turned out to be terrible. Can you make this twist better and reverse the curse?"
---

GTM posted...

"This is the medallion of power. The producers created this twist but it turned out to be terrible. Can you make this twist better and reverse the curse?"

Still better than Redemption Island.
---

I really hate how often people call out the Medallion of Power as a bad twist. It's a good twist. It just didn't work in that particular season. The idea of giving a struggling team a chance at an immunity advantage isn't a bad one.
---