Board 8 > Survivor: Ghost Island Topic 4 - I'd Vote For Yanny Over Laurel

(+) Yeah! (+)

Also I dont expect to host a rankdown this summer. Running my YouTube channel takes a good chunk of time and Im traveling for several weeks in June.

Just a heads up. Someone else can step up if they want though.
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Just finished your Kingmakers video ending with you talking about how Laurel may be the Kingmaker of this season by deciding who wins because she can't. Spot on.
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I know Burke said he would host but I recall someone having him on ignore. And I was gonna say I could do it but I think Andy has me on ignore.
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eaedwards6400 posted...

I know Burke said he would host but I recall someone having him on ignore. And I was gonna say I could do it but I think Andy has me on ignore.

I don't know why anyone would have me on ignore, but if so, then all that means is that we're down one person. It doesn't mean I can't do it.
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Alright, rant time:

Survivor has changed in recent years, and not for the better. The past three seasons have all met with derision from the fanbase, but honestly? As I've said in the past, the things the fans hate about GC/HHH/GI all got their start several seasons prior, in Cambodia. It just happens that a combination of factors came together to make the casual fanbase love Cambodia, despite some very obvious flaws that people suddenly DISliked when they came up again later on. Same goes for MvGX, but that's a direct continuation of the format spawned by Cambodia. All that being said, it's not entirely Cambodia's fault. As much as I love the season, Kaoh Rong has also had a dramatically negative effect on the franchise, albeit for very different reasons, and I think the combination of Cambodia and Kaoh Rong, back-to-back, broke the franchise.

So first off, it's important to note that Kaoh Rong came first in reality. It was filmed before Cambodia but aired after because of the post-Worlds Apart fan vote. Now again, I LOVE Kaoh Rong, but from a production standpoint, everything went wrong that could possibly go wrong. The medevacs, while great for character development and creating a more character-driven storyline, fucked up production's scheduling. And because production is lazy and doesn't want to have to put the extra effort into editing episodes where they can't create self-contained stories about why a player got booted, that was a problem. I think said medevacs also fucked with the season in terms of the swap, where they had to come up with the Exile Island twist on the fly and lost one of what they considered one of their best female players as a result.

Furthermore, the Joe medevac left them with an extra challenge, and since they'd planned for a final three, rather than adapt and give us what would've been a MUCH more acceptable ending (Michele votes out Aubry at 3 and beats Tai in a close vote because he was too erratic), they had to throw in the juror removal twist, which just left a bad taste in their mouths. Throw in the fact that all three idols wound up flopping, and production must've been annoyed that they had such a diminished role in creating magic. Then when Michele won...arguably the least interesting player in the entire cast...the editors had to actually do their fucking jobs and craft a story that could justify Michele's victory. Yeah, I feel like production and the editors hate having to craft a complex narrative. They prefer slamming big, obvious characters down our throats.

But that's Kaoh Rong. As much as they were pissed at the result, they couldn't make too many dramatic changes to the format in Cambodia, because Cambodia would ultimately air first, and it would be jarring to switch things up, only to switch back one season later. Again, the casual viewer wouldn't realize Kaoh Rong was filmed first. Thus, you don't get the change to the jury format we saw in MvGX, but that was DEFINITELY a reaction to Michele's win.
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Anyway, Cambodia started out with a fan vote, and the fans were given a bunch of options to choose from in terms of which twenty players they wanted to see in the cast. Right off the bat, this is a strong way to get people invested in the season. For starters, it allows the producers to ensure that everyone has a fanbase, and it avoids a lot of those niggling doubt that you saw in All-Stars or HvV or Micronesia or Caramoan, regarding the return of certain less-than-desirable characters. Plus it allows them to say "Hey, it could've been worse. Imagine if Mikayla Wingle was in the cast." But more than that, I feel like the idea that the players were chosen by the fans really impacted the way the season played out. That, and the Second Chance theme turned the season from the show we've known for 31 seasons, into a group of people spending the entire season trying to one-up each other with more and more complicated strategic maneuvers.

Now first things first, my personal opinion on the cast? Shitty. Yes, the producers let the fans vote, but A. you're disallowing a bunch of legitimate All-Star players either because they're winners, or because they've played before, and B. of the narrowed pool of players, the producers are still selecting who'd they'd ultimately be okay with casting. That's where I take my first issue. I'm looking at the options for the male cast, and I see a small handful of interesting characters (Woo/Keith/Shane), a couple one-note challenge whores (Joe/Terry/Mike), and then a sea of strategy bots with varying levels of personality. On the female side, it's even worse when you consider that Mikayla Wingle, Natalie Tenerelli, Sabrina Thompson, Monica Padilla, Kelley Wentworth, and Stephanie Valencia were on the ballot, most of whom feel like filler at best, along with a few old-school women like Kelly/Kimmi/Peih-Gee who were probably gonna have a bad time regardless. So yeah, despite the whole "fans pick the cast!" twist, I was not excited about Cambodia at the start.

I bring all of this up because as I said earlier, Cambodia turned out to be an extremely popular season with the fans, and I feel like this is in part because the producers allowed them to have some level of input in the casting, which invested the fans more and made them more likely to overlook some flaws the season has. Now that's all set-up, so let's briefly discuss the reasons why Cambodia sucks. First off, I think production went overboard with the shit they threw at the fan in this season. Twenty-person cast, swap in episode three into three tribes, swap AGAIN in episode six into two tribes, thirteen-person merge, multiple idols and advantages (which, I know, was still average at the time, but it's all kinda leading up to the final six where, #SURVIVORFIRST, all votes got negated by two idols and Kimmi got fucked over.)
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Second, I'm not gonna trash the cast themselves. For all the talk of voting blocs and whatnot, the strategy this season was REASONABLY straightforward. Jeremy/Andrew/Tasha/Stephen were tight on Bayon, they picked up Spencer, and for the most part, all the moves made sense in terms of who was targeted and why. This wasn't like later seasons when people decided they needed to flip the script for no reason other than building a resume. I WILL, however, trash the editors in Cambodia, because they fucking sucked this season. Kelly Wiglesworth's boot is one of the biggest abominations up to that point in Survivor history, though it has since been supplanted in both Game Changers and Ghost Island. There was no lead up. There was no exploration of Kelly and Joe's relationship that turned Kelly into such a necessary target that the coven was spared. Suddenly, Kelly was just a huge threat and was blindsided. And we were supposed to care because blindsides are awesome.

Additionally, Abi-Maria was edited poorly. After the first four episodes, she just drops off the map for no reason, until she's randomly (and stupidly) booted at the final seven. Keith and Kimmi, despite making the finale, get no edit (which is especially egregious for Keith, because he wasn't voted in because he's some strategic mastermind...he was voted in as a fun character...and got promptly ignored because Cambodia needed to focus on the hyperactive strategy aspect of the show.) I'm COULD bitch about Spencer's unnecessary overplayed edit, but honestly, it's not that important to the direction Survivor has taken, so I'll leave it be.

There are two numbers that are important to note here: the thirteen-person merge and the six-person finale. The merge...I GET it. You want to have as many stars as possible around and hanging out on the jury. I think it was convenient that it spared Spencer and Savage, who both seemed to be production pets, but whatever. The point is the merge is too damn big. There are too many players left in the game and without the ability to focus via smaller tribes, it leads to shitty individual edits unless you have someone who is vitally important to a given episode, or to the season as a whole. This makes for a less suspenseful season, because it becomes obvious who the endgamers are VERY early on.

Six-person finale though? Yeah, that's bullshit. It doesn't even make SENSE in Cambodia. MvGX, GC and GI all had 20-person casts, but they only had a single double boot episode (all post-merge, because heaven forbid you cull the cast a little earlier.) But Cambodia had the Ciera/Stephen boot AND the Woo boot/Terry medevac. There was no reason why the show needed a six-person finale, especially since Survivor typically runs on a 14-episode schedule. Instead, they trimmed and episode and crammed the Kimmi boot into the finale. Again, I GET it, since the final 5 and final 4 were boring, obvious votes and the Kimmi boot was the only real excitement of the finale...but still.

For all of its flaws (terrible editing and terrible production decisions), Cambodia was loved by the fans. And for all of its triumphs (great cast, great editing, interesting gameplay that didn't need a fuckload of twists), Kaoh Rong was hated by production. The combination of these two facts started Survivor on a downward spiral.
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Millennials vs. Gen X was the first newbie season to FILM after Cambodia (and it's important to note that Cambodia was the FALL season, so it aired in its entirety before MvGX's cast shipped out.) I'm willing to bet that, much like Micronesia was the season shown to players before their seasons filmed, Cambodia was shown to MvGX's cast. And you can see the influence there. Hannah's whole "trust clusters" spiel is just a repackaging of Stephen's "voting blocs". Jay betraying Michaela/Zeke betraying Chris/Will betraying Zeke/Hannah booting Sunday for resume purposes is just a sign of players who watched Cambodia and took the wrong message from it. Plus again, MULTIPLE idols played over and over again, six-person finale.

There is one important thing in particular to note about MvGX because it kinda falls in line with Cambodia/KR in shaping the franchise in a negative fashion. The show had this amazing underdog story with David Wright where he started out poorly on the Gen X tribe, but morphed into a superstar, both in personality and in strategic abilities. Yet at the end of the game, he lost immunity and was voted out for being too big of a threat, thus getting a final three made up entirely of goats. For as shitty as MvGX's editing was, I feel like the final six were actually edited pretty well, specifically because the editors couldn't do their go-to of just building the winner up as a larger-than-life character compared to his meager opponents. Adam winning sucked because really, he didn't do anything other than out-social Hannah and Ken, but at the same time, that made the editors do their jobs a little better, so good job? The point is, by eliminating David at the final four, the players created a terrible situation for the producers where they had to work extra hard to sell their winner, rather than just lazing.
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Starting with Game Changers is where we see the fruits of producer frustration begin to grow. Kaoh Rong had Michele win, and the producers hated that. MvGX had David lose just shy of the final tribal council, and the producers hated that. I'd wager that after those two "failures", the producers wanted to be able to personally control the outcome of their show a little more. They start throwing out idols galore and throwing in twists that don't really even serve a purpose beyond having a twist. Game Changers is the season where I feel the producers really start caring more about their own twists and their own role in the show, than they do about the players. The Malcolm boot was inherently unfair (and should've been a double boot, if anything.) The Sandra boot had a ten-minute segment praising John Cochran on a yacht. Who is that for, other than the producers?

I blamed Cambodia for this earlier in the rant, because that was a season coming on the heels of SJDS (I love it, but the fans complained because the players weren't good at the game) and WA (people hated the cast, but the editors doing a shitty job didn't help...not that they'd ever accept the blame), so Cambodia was the first overwhelming success in over a year (remember that the producers hated Kaoh Rong.) So why not do everything you can to replicate that success without considering WHY it happened. I personally prefer the cast of Game Changers, both because there was more variety in personalities, and because they expressed more heart and soul, but it was never going to resonate with fans the same as Cambodia because they didn't get to pick the players. Multiple swaps to mix up tribes, which ultimate just leads to one original tribe getting decimated. Advantage-geddon was an exaggerated re-hash of the Kimmi boot and it flopped, but the producers LOVED IT, because again, they care more about big moments than about characters.

The one change from Cambodia to GC was the jury format. And this is the first big negative I have for the direction Survivor is going. Under the old format, every juror got to speak. Every juror got to stand up and ask a question, and those questions would often be informed by that particular juror's relationship with the finalists. But now, the editors can not only ignore players on the jury, but since they're not relevant to jury deliberation, they can also ignore them in-game as well. It's not QUITE as bad in Game Changers, but this is all leading up to Ghost Island, so we'll get there.
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Honestly? I don't have much bad to say about HHH. It's an outlier. The only season since Cambodia filmed where there are 18 players, the cast is solid, and honestly, if MvGX/GC/GI were all trying to capitalize on the success of Cambodia, HHH was definitely trying to continue to capitalize on the success of Cagayan (which, I would say, was the only season in the 21-30 range that the producers unequivocally loved.) The overabundance of idols/advantages sucked...definitely the result of Cambodia's influence...but then there's the final twist. The fire-making twist is because the producers hated seeing David leave, forcing them to have to edit a final three of goats into a competitive match-up. It allowed them to get the very winner they want (even though a Chrissy.Ryan/Devon showdown would've been FAR more exciting), and really solidified their ability to control the outcome of the season.

So, all that being said...it's time to talk about how Ghost Island managed to create a perfect shitstorm that led to what I would consider the worst all-newbie season of all time. Every negative I described from Cambodia through HHH built up and built up until reaching critical mass in this steaming pile. And honestly? While I do place blame on people like Laurel, Angela, Sebastian and Jenna for being so unbelievably passive that it ruined any sense of gameplay, the vast majority of the blame needs to fall on production themselves.

First off, casting was terrible. This is the ONE aspect of Ghost Island's failure that I won't try to connect with the other 31-36 seasons. Malolo's pretty alliance had two useless blonde girls and two generic guys who offered little in the way of personality. Both Laurel and James, while occasionally having moments of brilliance, were calm and rational people who were never going to be that interesting. Gonzalez is one of the most obvious early boots ever, Jacob/Donathan were undeniably going to be obnoxious and over-the-top, and that leave Stephanie, who could have either been the sole interesting character on Malolo, or lumped in with Jacob/Donathan's descriptor. Naviti, meanwhile, had people like Sebastian, Angela, Chelsea, Morgan, Bradley, all of whom were less-than-dynamic personalities, and even Wendell himself would fit in the same category as Laurel/James from Malolo. Des was in the Gonzalez position of a likely early boot, Kellyn/Domenick were diet knock-offs of successful archetypes (Aubry/Hannah and Tony/Rob), which leaves Chris as the only quality character, but even he followed in the footsteps of a long line of douchey guys.
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All that being said, we come to point two. The casting department fucked up, but the editors fucked up MORE. Cambodia is the first season that REALLY started hammering the idea of strategy over character, and Ghost Island is what happens when you take that philosophy and apply it to a season that didn't have a lot of strategy to highlight. Domenick is a boisterous personality, yet ALL we ever got from him was discussion of the strategic plays he needed to make. I know he has a family, but that's about it. The same goes for Wendell. And those were the two finalists that TIED in the final vote. Those are the players that we're supposed to be cheering for as amazing players, yet they were reduced to strategic vessels.

Meanwhile, Donathan was underedited until the last few episodes, Laurel got a steady stream of "I'm gonna make a big move!" confessionals before doing no such thing, and Angela, Sebastian, Chelsea, Jenna, Des and Libby all got completely ignored throughout the post-merge to the point where I would argue we have NO idea why Jenna, Chelsea or Sebastian were targeted when they were. Apparently, Chelsea was a big threat, yet we saw NOTHING from her. The editors saw fit to give her one big moment, booting Bradley, to Domenick. Out of nowhere, Des is not only closely-aligned with Kellyn, but she's also trying to turn against her to make a resume. How about showing us that alliance and making us give a shit, editors?

It's astonishing to me. I rewatched Palau during the last few weeks of this season. It's very similar. Dominant alpha male and his near-equal partner running the show and ultimately reaching the final three together with their partner that the jury did NOT respect. Yet despite that dominance, the editors made sure to build up other players. Despite ultimately being irrelevant, the editors starting building Gregg/Jenn/Janu/Coby as a counter-alliance to Tom/Ian/Katie in the PRE-MERGE, and it continued onward, right up until Gregg got blindsided at six. It wasn't like Gregg suddenly lifted his head at six to make a failed play, only to be easily snuffed out like Chelsea or Sebastian. We saw NOTHING to indicate ANY difficulty for Dom/Wendell whatsoever. And that's on the editors.
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But more importantly than EITHER of those flaws is the third aspect of productions negative influence: production itself. Every aspect of production's role in this season was utterly terrible. The two-swap format has proven terrible in all three attempts since Cambodia, with one tribe getting decimated due to losing the first two challenges. It's a twist that, but adding too much chaos and luck to the game, encourages the majority to stick together because they've never had to test their loyalties, which putting the minority in a rough spot because they've already had to show the cracks in their alliances. And which makes more sense? Make new alliances every new tribe swap? Or stick with your original tribe and vote out the minority tribe to try and boost your tribe's numbers so that when there's an inevitable swap, you're less likely to be stuck in some sort of minority yourself. And let's not forget the double boot episode which was essentially a THIRD swap and continue to fuck over Malolo. Good job, producers.

Ghost Island itself was a flop for a variety of reasons, but I'm actually gonna call out the concept in general. EVERY advantage or idol required a five-minute segment of the finder reading off a piece of paper, accompanied by a flashback of the original season the relic came from. THAT is a large part of why the edit was so shitty. We had to dedicate more time to Michaela's extra vote than we did to Chelsea. This was especially egregious in the finale, when rather than give us an extra ten minutes of reunion to maybe, I dunno, talk to the cast...they instead gave us a ten minute segment of Domenick unnecessarily picking a voting urn, after discussing the past history of all three voting urns. Speaking of which, fuck off with the Game Changers voting urn. Stop pimping that shit so hard. J.T.'s idol, Sarah's legacy advantage, Sarah's extra vote, AND the voting urn? The fans didn't like Game Changers, get over it.

The other flaws were there too though: 13-person merge, just as awful as in Cambodia/MvGX/GC, 6-person finale, just as awful as Cambodia/MvGX/GC, fire-making tiebreaker that ate up MORE screentime in an already bloated finale (and I should point out, marks twice when a player correctly tried to boot the biggest threat...who held an idol until the final five, only to have said threat make fire and win the season as a result.) And then we finish with that shitty jury format where half the jurors didn't get to speak, and thus we have NO IDEA why most of the jury voted the way they did. A fucking tie vote and we have NO CLUE why Jenna/Libby voted Domenick and Angela/Chelsea voted Wendell (I also have no clue why Donathan/Kellyn voted Wendell, but at least they got to speak.) The producers managed to ruin what should have been one of the most exciting outcomes in Survivor history, because they edited a standard season like a fast-paced strategy-fest, and they cared more about sucking their own history than the game itself.
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And I WOULD be hopeful, because you're right that the fans have panned this season and that might inspire change like what we finally got after One World. But the producers just can't seem to get their heads out of their own asses. It's one thing to worship Cambodia and try to create another Cambodia, because at least fans LIKE Cambodia, regardless of how shitty it really is.) But this season showed that they're trying to pimp Game Changers, which most fans HATED, for no reason other than...it's what production wants. And then reading interviews where Jeff completely disregards complaints about the fire-making tiebreaker and says it's here to stay...I just fear like we're reaching a point where production is just going to do what they want and manipulate the seasons to get a winner they want (instead of an organic winner that might be more interesting), and the show suffers as a result.
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honestly even though i thought game changers was bad and this season sucked, hhh would've been like a top-10 level season if it werent for the last-second twist that gave ben the win over devon tbqh

and uh seasons 21-24 happened, it's been much worse before lol
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:O
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Naye745 posted...

honestly even though i thought game changers was bad and this season sucked, hhh would've been like a top-10 level season if it werent for the last-second twist that gave ben the win over devon tbqh

and uh seasons 21-24 happened, it's been much worse before lol

22-24, 26*

And yes, it has been bad before, but the difference back then is that at least Survivor was still Survivor. No F4 fire-making crap, no open forum jury. The seasons just felt like a string of bad casts or bad editing, and it never felt like Survivor was reaching a place where the show would never recover. But this is just...this has been bad. Especially since DvG is another stupid theme with 20 people.
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i dunno, the show has changed stuff all the time, it'll change again. it's not struggling in the ratings, it will go through its ups and downs, i'm just...not really worried.

like, do i think 37 and 38 might be lame because they are still too gimmick-heavy and the producers aren't listening? yeah, maybe. but i'm still enjoying the show enough, and it'll still be there. not gonna sweat it that hard tbqh
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like hidden immunity idols have not always been a thing, and seasons 22 and 23 had a thing (redemption island) that was completely beyond what people would consider "still Survivor". (certainly that's more dramatic a format adjustment than the open-forum jury) the f4 fire twist is hard to gauge, but this season it felt much more palatable (and i think fans generally agree) because it was known from the start, and the ire was because of a player winning because of it, where nobody came back and won due to redemption island. i can only imagine the complaints that would've flooded survivor fan forums 6 or so years ago had ozzy won south pacific tbqh
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Kinda disagree on Cambodia, it was better on rewatch for me once I accepted the fact that it was simply a strategy-driven season because the strategy actually does live up to it being edited the way it was. Not one of my favorites but a low-mid tier season.

Completely agree on Ghost Island though, it definitely felt like a culmination of bad decisions all piling up on top of each other. I was losing my mind by the end because every mundane occurrence (Wendell forgetting to call over Jeff, Donathan refusing to put up with Dom, Angela not caring about her tiebreaker seat) was edited like it was supposed to be some sort of big Survivor moment but all of them just came off as uncomfortable. It's just unfathomable to me how production (or certain parts of the fanbase, like /r/survivor) are satisfied with the finale and season when it was all garbage-tier storytelling on top of a season that only has maybe two moments each that would make a Funny 115 (Wendell/Chris rapping subplot, Sebastian's candy obsession) and a general top 500 Survivor moments (Morgan blindside and the 15 seconds where people are confused because Jeff started to read the final votes). The cast was okay to good on paper and they're probably fun personalities irl but I felt zero attachment to any of them. I'm ready to call this the worst season of Survivor, and if Jeff continues to double down and try to recreate it over 37-40 then I legitimately don't think the show is making it to S45.
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90% of that rant can be summed up to Inviso still hates Cambodia and it some how the cause of everything that is "bad" about modern survivor. Got it. You have been saying that for 3 years really could have saved yourself a lot time by not writing it out because I don't think the people that like Cambodia is gonna stop and say no you're write this is Cambodias fault
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eaedwards6400 posted...

90% of that rant can be summed up to Inviso still hates Cambodia and it some how the cause of everything that is "bad" about modern survivor. Got it. You have been saying that for 3 years really could have saved yourself a lot time by not writing it out because I don't think the people that like Cambodia is gonna stop and say no you're write this is Cambodias fault

You cannot tell me that there isn't a distinct difference is the way Survivor was presented pre-Cambodia (where for better or worse, characters took precedence in the edit and the producers, while still throwing new twists in, allowed the game to play out more organically), and post-Cambodia (where strategy trumps everything and twists become more important than the players with a new one every episode). Given that the fan reaction has been souring over the course of the past three seasons...I'm just pointing out that most of the problems are not NEW to Game Changers/HHH/Ghost Island. They started in Cambodia. And a refusal from the fanbase to acknowledge that, while lumping blind praise on the season, is why the producers continue to fuck us over, trying to recreate Cambodia.
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And Cambodia was a FAN VOTED top 5 season. So naturally they are going to try and recreate it but what we have learned from survivor is that when the fans sour on something they will change it. You and darkx are not the only ones who are angry and it may take a season or 2 more but the show will correct course.
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Also, you keep blaming too many advantages on Cambodia. Cambodia only had 4 idols and 1 vote steal. That's it. As compared to GC where I feel like that was doubled.
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I have Burke on ignore and I don't think I'm trusted with things anymore anyway.
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eaedwards6400 posted...

Also, you keep blaming too many advantages on Cambodia. Cambodia only had 4 idols and 1 vote steal. That's it. As compared to GC where I feel like that was doubled.

There are other seasons with a lot of advantages (HvV, Caramoan), but even then, the idols felt more like additions to the characters, rather than vital parts of their overall edits. Cambodia, in tandem with the change in editing style, led to an increase in prominence for the idols, which in turn led to the producers stuffing the seasons with more and more crap, because they assumed it was moments like the Kimmi boot (and the Savage/Ciera/Stephen blindsides) that made the season good.
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The Savage blindside did make Cambodia good imho
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Yeah I don't agree with that assessment at all.
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i don't think a majority of the viewing audience gives a shit about the format changes though, or how disliked game changers is, or advantagegeddon being praised, or even the F4 fire twist

i think jeff does care about the hardcore fans but i also think he's got this kratos-esque daddy role, we get lippy and he's all like "boy, stfu, let me do my thing goddamn".

i think, if you want change, you either gotta get enough eyes and ears on you to have the higher-ups take notice, or just stop watching and hope others follow suit -- again, so the higher-ups take notice. but that's even tougher to do cause you don't wanna quit the show.

i remember a lot of fans hated redemption island so much and jeff actually ventured over to survivorsucks to address them. so bizarre now to think he'd do that. but he went and wrote a post quelling their fears, explaining himself a bit, letting hardcore fans know he hears them.
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alternatively if you want a good show you could just watch the genius !!!
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While I think Cambodia and its positive reception confirmed to production that the direction they had planned going in (and were already going in, especially after Cagayan) was the right one, I actually think their idea of good television is just fundamentally different from Inviso's (or mine, for that matter). Everything they do nowadays is meant to either increase the incentive to pull off moves/shake up the game or to reward flashier gameplay that makes for that idea of better television. One way to ensure players will keep making such moves is to ensure the jury rewards players for those moves. I always go back to that question Jeff tacked on at the end of the MvGX reunion, when he basically forced Michelle to say emotional juries suck and that big moves are life. They've been forcing that narrative because they think it's the best way to keep the show from becoming stale.

Every new twist basically boils down to "how can we make the players more likely to shake up the game?". Give them a set of pointers during final tribal so they focus on what production wants them to focus on. Reward players for taking risks. Give the big threats more wiggling room by having advantages and idols that can keep them safe. Create a fire-making challenge so that those big threats have a fighting chance into the F3 even if they failed to win immunity; voting out the big threat at F5 is harder than at F4 since the more numbers, the more moving parts. So on and so forth. Ultimately, I think their twists are meant to stop players like Kaoh Rong Michele from ever winning again, because it goes completely against their ideal narrative. And really, I think they were hoping Chrissy would win last season -- the entire HHH reunion was basically damage control in an attempt to make Ben's game look less terrible than it was.

Ghost Island was rather experimental and they're probably aware it didn't quite work; the audience reception was mostly negative and it was pretty obvious the editors were struggling for storylines. Most of the cast was completely inconsequential and had no role in the story. They basically went haywire with advantages and twists, and it didn't pay off because the same alliance kept getting all the advantages. I assume the next thing they'll start thinking about is how they can ensure a more diverse pool of players can get those advantages. And as much as I wish I could justify character > strategy, it's clear most people don't watch Survivor that way. The fan favorite this season was someone with less personality than Joe Anglim, if you can believe it, and all we learned about him was that he's young and he likes Survivor.
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And once they realized that the advantages have caused them to be frozen with fear with their moves as opposed to incentivise them to make more moves the show will correct course
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eaedwards6400 posted...

And once they realized that the advantages have caused them to be frozen with fear with their moves as opposed to incentivise them to make more moves the show will correct course

I don't know about thaaaat. They are scared of idols so the solution is to have more idols/advantages to counteract them. It's basically how people are playing Survivor now; almost every move starts with "I have this advantage/idol, so now I can do x". I haven't seen a move like Aubry flipping Tai in Kaoh Rong in a while, and even then, it's less flashy and thus less likely to be rewarded. Pulling out an item during Tribal looks good, production knows it's exciting, and so they are making sure those moves are rewarded.
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Maybe Im just cynical, but I dont trust production to review their internal practices and make corrections accordingly. After fans hated RI, they brought the twist back the very next season with new returnees. After THAT was hated (along with OW), the producers waited a season and cast 60% of the Caramoan favorites with people from RI/SP, followed by bringing RI back and recasting three people from One World. Then they FINALLY give us a strong set of seasons in Cagayan/SJDS/WA, only to announce fan voting and putting six more players from those three awful casts on the ballot (none of them were picked, mind you). Philippines is a popular season and only had Abi on the ballot FFS.

I just dont trust production. Theyre like Vince McMahon with Roman Reigns: they have something THEY like, so they keep trying to push it to the detriment of the fans.
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To be fair to production, who else do you put on the ballot for Philippines?

Denise won. Skupin, Malcolm and Penner already played multiple times. IIRC, Lisa didnt want to come back. Carter is Carter. Pete is really the only other person I think you could make a reasonable case for. Maybe RC, but RC sucks.
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You think production thought Stephanie Valencia or Nat10 would get audience voted? They were obvious fodder and they needed the usual bikini fodder anyway (thanks Monica!). Truth is production had a cast in mind and probably 16 out of the 20 players they knew would 100% get audience-voted. It was more of a stunt than anything else, and it totally worked considering the Cambodia hype was absolutely bonkers.

Redemption Island sucked but after one season, you can't just assume it's because of the twist. I don't find it outrageous to give the twist a fair shake, and in all fairness, RI gave us some of the best moments of BvW. I think it's a shitty game-breaking twist but I don't blame production for trying to experiment. The show's presentation is imo what has suffered the most in the past few years and is the real negative legacy of Cambodia; the shift in editing and the choice of narratives has had a palpable impact. The age of big moves had been brewing for a long time before Cambodia, and if you really want to blame someone, blame Russell and the audience reception to him.

And yes, production has something they like, but they like it because they think it'll sell. That's how it works.

edit. We will not have RC libel in this topic btw.
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RC declined when she found out Abi was on the ballot. I've also read that Jeff Kent was offered a spot, but he declined.
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The Mana Sword posted...

To be fair to production, who else do you put on the ballot for Philippines?

Denise won. Skupin, Malcolm and Penner already played multiple times. IIRC, Lisa didnt want to come back. Carter is Carter. Pete is really the only other person I think you could make a reasonable case for. Maybe RC, but RC sucks.

Pete, RC, Jeff, Dawson (I mean, if Mikayla is viable for SP, then why not?)
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The ballot was already pretty stacked tbh, I don't know why you'd want to see more of your faves not make it. T-Bird and Shane getting robbed was enough, I don't need to see Dawson stuck in there as fodder so I can spend the next decade fantasizing that production cares about her.
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Steph, Nat 10, Monica, Kelley and Mikayla were all good look women fodder.

The to remember now as compared to back with RI is the seasons are filmed back to back so it is going to be longer for them to have their feedback meeting. If there was a big enough stink after HHH then I think it is likely we will see small changes for 37 and 38 is even more likely since it was after GO
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I don't think Kelley was fodder, actually. She was both a production darling and had strong support from fans. I think they expected her to make it on more than they expected someone like PG or T-Bird to ever make it.
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Her looks probably helped but I forgot about Miss. Survivor
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Man, Cambodia airing before Kaoh Rong really messes with era distinction, doesn't it? Because I'm having a tough time splitting up the 10 most recent seasons into eras. I think the previous era clearly ends at 26, but where is the split after that? If they had aired in production order, then it would be really easy to call BvW through Kaoh Rong an era, then Cambodia through the present an era, but as it stands, 32 has more in common with 27-30, and 31 has more in common with 33-36.
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You could really go 27 - 34 as the Big Moves era and we are in the fire making challenge era (big moves are still here)
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That being said though, 25 doesn't really fit in the survivor dark ages
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eaedwards6400 posted...

You could really go 27 - 34 as the Big Moves era and we are in the fire making challenge era (big moves are still here)

There's definitely a big difference in 27-30 and 33/34 though. 27-30, whether I liked the seasons or not, still felt like the show that I had watched back in the early-mid 2000s. There were some radical changes for sure, but it was still recognizable. Beginning with 33, while there have still been some positives to particular seasons (33's narrative, 34's big moments, 35's cast), it truly feels like a new show. Now that I say that, even though it was the catalyst for most of the changes, Cambodia really did still feel like Survivor, so I guess I'd put the split between 32 and 33.

eaedwards6400 posted...

That being said though, 25 doesn't really fit in the survivor dark ages

Philippines is an anomaly in the Dark Ages for sure, but it still happened during that time period. If anything it's very welcomed in that era because here's all this garbage and then out of nowhere a top 5 season.
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Probably the moment they decided to stick to Fiji for the rest of their days and make every season a theme.
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Peridiam posted...

Probably the moment they decided to stick to Fiji for the rest of their days and make every season a theme.

Another point for 33 being the beginning of the new age.
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tbqh I thought MvGX was okay and it was only with GC that twistamania really started to get to me.
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Inviso posted...

But Cambodia had the Ciera/Stephen boot AND the Woo boot/Terry medevac. There was no reason why the show needed a six-person finale, especially since Survivor typically runs on a 14-episode schedule. Instead, they trimmed and episode and crammed the Kimmi boot into the finale. Again, I GET it, since the final 5 and final 4 were boring, obvious votes and the Kimmi boot was the only real excitement of the finale...but still.

Ciera/Stephen was clearly two episodes. The fact they happened to air the same night is irrelevant.
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bwburke94 posted...

Inviso posted...

But Cambodia had the Ciera/Stephen boot AND the Woo boot/Terry medevac. There was no reason why the show needed a six-person finale, especially since Survivor typically runs on a 14-episode schedule. Instead, they trimmed and episode and crammed the Kimmi boot into the finale. Again, I GET it, since the final 5 and final 4 were boring, obvious votes and the Kimmi boot was the only real excitement of the finale...but still.

Ciera/Stephen was clearly two episodes. The fact they happened to air the same night is irrelevant.

Oh, that was one of those two-hour episodes? I completely forgot that it wasn't all just one hour.
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