Survivor: Game Changers

It's to much of a "Social" game IMO, that's Survivors problem....I'm much more of a fan of the show "Alone" than Survivor now until Survivor changes things up which will never happen.

To bad OZZY got booted by players who couldn't catch a cold if it was minus 30 degrees. I hope the tribe starves!

 

Even though Debbie annoys the crap out of me, kudos to her for spearheading and executing the Ozzie blindside. At least that's the way it happened according to the edited show they presented to us.

 

Oh yeah, Ozzy would kick ass on a pure survival show like that. But if that's what he thinks it entails, he should sign up for one of those. The essential game format has been in place for 34 seasons so to pass the blame onto that over Ozzy's inability to adapt to it is akin to Russell Hantz complaining that America should decide the winner. That's a completely different show than Survivor. After four unsuccessful tries, Ozzy still just repeats the same strategy in the hopes that he'll be matched up with a group that values his fishing skills over anything else. It's not going to happen.

FWIW, I'm not singling out Ozzy here. There are a number of returning players, some of whom I really do like, who seem too stubborn or incapable of switching up their style to ever win. Rupert, Varner, Michaela, both Russells all come to mind.

The best thing she did was not tell anyone who wasn't essential to the plan what was happening. She secured the numbers and that was that. Way too often blindsides get derailed because people want to keep as few people as possible in the dark, but that just means more opportunities for it to backfire.

On another note, I realize that we're only about halfway through the season, but after this week's two ho-hum episodes, this may not be the worst season of all time (most of the early episodes were pretty good, especially the Tony/Sandra showdown) but it definitely feels like the most unnecessary. Like, we just had a season of returning players less than two years ago; the elimination order has been horrible; there's been an excess of awful twists that resulted in the most entertaining people being on the wrong side of numbers and axed easily; and the group they assembled for this feels like they just took a random number generator and cast from there, no matter how much Jeff Probst tries to justify some of them as "game changers." I mean, was anybody really itching to see what would happen if such legendary players as Sarah and Troyzan faced off? (Especially considering that both Troyzan and Brad Culpepper weren't even popular enough to make the top 11 out of a group of 16 potential male returnees two years ago.) Other than Tony and a few of the people who have played in the last year, anyone worth bringing back in this cast has already played at least twice.

I mean, it's one thing if it's new players and they don't exactly exude personality and entertainment value on TV. But we've seen all these people in action already and pretty much know what they can deliver, and with ~250 women to choose from, you go with Sierra? And why completely ignore the first 19 seasons? A big reason why Second Chance was so fantastic was that it was an excellent cross-section of players from the entire history of the show, with people we hadn't seen play in 15 years. The longest time in between stints for anyone in Game Changers is 7 years for Cirie, Sandra, and JT...and that was their second or third time playing already. In that span of time, three other players in the cast played twice (Ciera, Andrea, Malcolm).

And at the end of the day, we're going to end up with a bunch of duds in the end who nobody had any interest in seeing come back and this season is going to be remembered for an ugly incident that cost a guy his job.

 

We don't hear that much from Troyzan or Michaela (other than the curtailed ouster of the latter). I suspect they'll be around at the end ...

 

culpepper.....troyzan........and there will no strong men left. them andrea and sierra...and what's left? the most boring final 6 or 7 ever.

remember siree (sp?) was part of the 4 woman alliance that conned the guy into giving his idol up and then voted him out. don't count her out at all.

 

And she's pissed!

 

Ding dong the witch is dead.

 

I'm extremely pleased that Debbie got her torch extinguished - but not before we found out that she's an airplane pilot in the Civil Air Patrol Auxiliary Air Force.
The bit where Cirie finished the reward challenge after it was over seemed a bit over the top.

 

I thought the entire episode was over the top and predictable. They telegraphed Debbie going from the opening segment then kept it going to the end.

Did Debbie say she was a pilot? At first I did think she claimed to be a pilot but reran it in my head and understood it to mean a "captain" in the Civil Air Patrol. I understood that to be a rank instead of a pilot.
Then I thought, who would promote her to the rank of captain? And if so, what kind of dog and pony show is a Civil Air Patrol? Then decided that she was making it up.

 

The second witch, but what a wasted opportunity from that group to get out someone who actually matters. Weird, weird thinking going on.

 

I think she said she was a pilot and a Captain.

 

Honestly, I don't even like Debbie but I'm sad to see her go. Last night was so boring--even the challenges were dull (did we really need a 5-minute segment of people yelling, "You can do it" after the challenge was over?) and this season really can't afford to lose anyone with personality at this point. This could be the worst endgame ever if it turns out to be Sierra and Sarah and Troyzan and Andrea competing to see who can make the most generic comments about strategy with the least inflection. Bonus points if you shoehorn the phrase "game changer" as inorganically as possible.

Also I feel like this was the third episode in a row where we've had an extended feel-good moment of people crying and bonding after losing the reward challenge.

 

Funny, when I saw the reward course I thought, whoever gets stuck with Cirie is toast. I forgot that there was an odd number and she could have been sitting out. Then she of all people was a captain.

Michaela really squandered an opportunity by pouting. In the bigger picture, she was in a better position than being on Cirie's team. I can see where Culpepper wouldn't want her. When picking a team you also pick based on attitude of people that will work well together. She has put herself on the bench and out of the game.

I also found Culpepper's comment about splitting the core group across the two teams to be an interesting take, to keep an eye on everyone, at the reward and at camp. If he really wanted to do that, he should have taken someone other than Sierra and sent her to the to the other team because everyone sees Culpepper and Sierra as tight. In hindsight, maybe should have picked Sara and let Sierra stay back at camp.

Another thought that seems different this season. There is a departure of the moving body of voting blocks from the previous couple of seasons. Is it because of the age of the players (Generation X) or because of how they played in previous seasons?

 

I'm glad Debbie is gone....she was starting to make me dislike Patti Smith.

 

I had to laugh at Michaela eating coconut chips at the tribal council, as if she didn't have a care in the world ...

Sarah is looking good now. I hope she uses her cop skills to go a long way.

 

I also feel like it was totally manufactured by Probst: "C'mon Cirie, I'm sure you want to finish the challenge to prove to yourself you can do it. We really need a feel good moment here, because the results of the challenge were so lop-sided that it didn't make for good television. But if we can see you struggle some more and shed some tears, we can just about make a worthwhile edit for this challenge."

 

What bugs me now is that at least half of Probst's lines are the same things every episode. They could cut & paste from the last 10 seasons & no one would know the difference. I'm not sure if it's laziness or some type of self-parody.

 

very overrated segment to say the least...the commercials all week leading up to the show were about the indecent and it was definitely not as big as they made it out to be. must have been a very uneventful 3 days on the island.

and debbie is gone gone gone........now mickayla and all will be well.

 

Debbie arriving at Ponderosa. Weight loss - 1.5 lbs. The least amount they've ever seen for someone going that far in the game. Kind of goes against the theory that they were staving to death or even kind of hungry.

 

I tend to agree at this point. It took me awhile to even remember that Zeke got voted out last night. Meh

Maybe Michaela can go crazy or something to liven things up.

 

The one thing I actually found interesting in last night's episode, is that Michaela was shown actually playing the game - talking strategy with others, and saying some really good things at tribal. She wasn't just in "I tell it like it is" mode, and it was kind of refreshing.

 

When they were asked at tribal why Debbie was chosen to leave last week, the answer was because she was in charge?!

 

We all know the real reason. They were afraid she'd stab them in the neck at neck. Coo-koo.

 

Debbie would be impressed by that. Good strategy!

 

Zeke handled his exit with his usual class and character. He wasn't my favourite player but he deserves a lot of credit.