Ball don't lie

I think Jesse was great, but he should have had some idea of how competent he was at making fire, and probably should NOT have voted Cody out when he did. If you can't make fire, you kind of have to keep Cody, so you have a better chance of making it to the end. Cody might take you. Cody might be targeted before you.

Surprised that person was allowed to climb up that rock face.

Wonder how the vote goes if Cass beat Jesse at fire.

Maybe unpopular thought, but Jesse should have done everything possible to keep Karla in at F5. If she goes out F5, he has to know he's everyone's #1 target at F4, and he should probably know he's going to go up against whoever's best at making fire, and he should know he's probably not good at it.

Essentially, he needs a shield at F4. Instead, he bet it all on winning immunity or fire and lost.

This has always been the problem with Survivor, at least in its more modern version. It's edited to misdirect and surprise the viewer rather than inform about what's really going on. But then ultimately it's an entertainment show and not a documentary.

Why do you think Jesse had unique info that other jurors relied on?

Old school Survivor used to tell a consistent 'story of what happened' which always made sense. For example on my recent Borneo re-watch, going into the final two it is made extremely clear in the edit

If Rich win's why - He is the sole food provider, has a good work good work ethic, really well liked by Rudy, Shaun, Greg
If Rich loses why - At times shown to be arrogant, got on peoples nerves, unsettled the women with his nudity and attitude

If Kelly wins why - Made good social bonds with the pagongs, shown to be mature beyond her years, great at challenges
If Kelly loses why - Shown to be very flakey, indecisive, half jumped ship from her original alliance annoying both sides

Modern Survivor

Season 43
If Gabler wins why - ummm, watch 5 hours of post game interviews I guess? Because why tell a story when you can present every single episode like a stand alone slot machine spin. Look at the shiney shiney vote steal idol knowldege is power multiplier advantage!

Just how the alliance with those 2 and Cody made a lot of the decisions. Every time Gabler spoke about his game to the jury Jesse always nodded. I feel like Jesse wanted Gabler to win and the jury respected his game so much they did what he wanted.

And a disclaimer: I don't think Gabler played badly or anything that's just my opinion on why it was 7-1 and so many votes went to Gabler that seemed unexpected.

My exact thoughts watching the finale. I told my wife that if I was on Survivor the #1 thing above all else that I’m doing is learning how to make fire. Pretty sure I could do better than that with zero practice.


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Just watched finale tonight, and what was interesting was that I got spoiled earlier today by a random FB post, and I was genuinely shocked at Gablers win. Early in the episode where he shared his plan to donate the winnings in a confessional, I thought for sure that was the reason he won.

I got a lot more respect for his win now that I know he didn’t reveal it during the jury discussion.

On the other hand, has there ever been a worse final tribal performance by two of the three contestants? Owen spent the entire time making a case against himself and Cass got caught trying to revise history. Unbelievable.


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he's like 99.9% to have been at the capitol on jan. 6th

The move away from 39 day seasons does not seem to be a positive from an overall story arc perspective, and they gimmicked up the idols and advantages so much that the variance is even more pronounced. it’s like a hyper turbo with suicide kings being wild vs the main event.

I don’t think the ability to make fire should have such an impact on determining the winner either - for those saying Jesse should have been practicing all season - that would have been really hard to pull off in secret.

Pro-Vet <> MAGA

Hint:


Apologies for getting political

The flip side is seasons where 4 episodes in, the entire fan base is posting about "well, player X is getting the obvious winner edit this is boring."

I also think the fact is that this season:

Owen had a clear story that was well told because it was true. It just isn't a winner story, and his zero vote final made perfect sense.

Gabler had a story that was also told - weird guy at the start who people didn't vibe with, but over time they got used to him and appreciated him as the weird uncle type; yeah they didn't explicitly say "Gabler's kind of funny and I like him" but they definitely stopped with the "Gabler is goddamn annoying" stuff we saw early in the season.

Cassidy had no story told because she didn't really author a big story for herself. She was just kind of there, part of the main alliances and even she herself couldn't really point to a big move, just that "I was always on the right side" which, while true, wasn't exactly compelling as a win.

In reality, I think the winner was determined by Jesse and Karla; they were seen by the jury as the "deserving winners", and Jesse left and said nice things about Gabler, and Karla left and talked crap about Cassidy. Kind of hard to wrap that into a sensible narrative.

Cassidy seemed like she had little mini wars within her alliance with Ryan and then Karla. It didn't seem like either was necessary and it probably cost her their respect and their votes. I think often people like to vote for those they deemed "on their team", but not if you were combative with them in the game.

And Gabler set a record with the fastest fire winning time EVER by over half minute.

Was an okay season.

Only thing that really stuck out to me from the finale was the dynamics of the fire-making decision from Cassidy. Jesse's pitch that Cassidy should face him in fire making is not that outlandish. Of course if you're in her spot it is quite the decision to make.

Just quickly scanning back through Wikipedia, it looks like the first season to bring in the fire making challenge at final four was S35: Heroes v Healers v Hustlers, where the producers took every step imaginable to keep Ben in the game and he won fire making and won the final vote 5-2-1.

Since S35, only two seasons have occurred where the F4 immunity winner (the person to make the decision on who has to make fire) has gone onto win:
- S37: David v Goliath. Nick 7-3-0
- S38: Edge of Extinction. Chris 9-4-0, which infamously he gave up immunity and took on Rick on fire making (in essence supporting my theory)

Really there's only one other example that the F4 immunity winner was even remotely close in the vote, when in S36: Ghost Island, Domenick won and lost vs. Wendell by a 6-5 vote when Laurel was forced to cast a vote.

Side note: players who were "saved" at F4 and went on to win were Maryanne (S42), Erika (S41) and Tommy (S39).

So lots of blabbering here to say that on pretty limited sample size, you do want to be part of fire making. That extra bump on the resume, possibly by taking out the largest remaining threat at F4.


Edit: forgot about Maryanne. So three out of nine winners have been goats that have won. Huh. This was a lot of talking about a bunch of nothing maybe.

Yep the current stats are

-5 winners from fire making position (Ben, Wendell, Chris Underwood, Tony, Gabler)
-3 winners from the 'goat' position (Tommy, Erika, Maryanne)
-1 winner from immunity winner who hung onto it position (Nick)

Made even more interesting by the fact Mike White, who was the fire maker winner, essentially didn't try to win in the final tribal council so could well be 6-3-0 statistic if he had really fought for it.

I thought the forced fire making twist was total garbage to begin with, because why are you ending the game even earlier and denying the possibility of a fantastic 2-1-1 vote, but if it really has become the new 'meta' that winning final 4 immunity and holding onto it is a knock against your win equity then it can truly get f******

Bottom 10 but not bottom 5 season for me, somewhere around where I would put Edge of Extinction if I was doing a full list.

Still unfortunately have a lot of issues with the current format

-3 tribes of 6 without any swap. I fully believe the contestants knowing there would be no swap for the first time is why so many women went home pre merge
-Very repetitive 'sob stories' segments wasting episode time
-Stale overlong repetitive obstacle course+puzzle challenges
-Overlong boring tribal councils full of pointless analogies and marketing for how amazing modern Survivor is
-Too many advantages causing defensive risk adverse game play
-Seasons feeling like an anthology series rather than telling one consistent story
-Having essentially no time to explore any relationships because of all of the above, then revealing things from several episodes ago in an attempt to 'wow' the audience - The 'since when' effect as Rob Cesterino has coined it
- And capped off by editing the winner like a 0 vote finalist the whole way through in an attempt to again 'wow' the audience. It's not clever, its just annoying and a sign of production liking the smell of their own farts too much. You are not creating a murder mystery show.

Just a country mile off the current standard Survivor South Africa are putting out currently

this

Well done .



I really enjoyed this season tbh.
*Didn't have too much drama/woke ****
*They didn't push too many social agendas
*The contestants were mostly playing hard but it was also just a group that respected each other and liked each other, very little bitterness, bad losers, unnecessary blowups, etc. I enjoy that way more than people going out angry or fighting or...
*Players that made it deep were all anywhere from decent to good at the dynamics of Survivor (excluding Ryan). The way the show is edited now is not ideal to enjoy the tactical gameplay anyway, but it was still a fun season to watch from strategy perspective.
*Nobody that made it deep was annoying to watch. The best I can come up with was Sami & Ryan, and for a 19 year old Sami he was very acceptable. Ryan was a bit stupid but not in an annoying way.
Would not mind to see more of Noelle, Owen, Cody, Karla, Jesse.

It was not amazing or memorable season, but it was an excellent version of an average season imo.


I also think the Gabler win is fine. Sure he was perceived as goatish for most of the game (also didn't get the impression at all he was considered a pure goat, just "not a threat"), but in the end he was almost always positioned very well socially, he was participating in the strategy & alliance game very well (and rarely but not never a driver), his social awareness was very good, he was able to read & manipulate situations fairly well, and he was very good at the survival/physical part of the game.
He did seem to lose his cool pretty quickly a few times and he could've used one or two more moments where he really changed the game, but I don't think that needs to be the case for every winner.

Owen didn't deserve it and where Gabler lacked, Casidy also lacked in the end, but less. I wonder if Casidy had a better final tribal if it would have changed something.

She seemed aware Gabler was crushing it but was still shocked when Gabler won, was a bit weird.

I don't mind firemaking, but I really wish Survivor would bring back reward challenges. Would allow for some more casual events like the auction.

I don't think FTC matters. Ponderosa matters.

My updated dream (so completely unrealistic) cast if season 45 ended up being a 2nd chance season from people s35-43

Personally I am only interested if there is a redemption story to be framed

S35 - Chrissy
S36 - Dominik
S37 - Christian, Gabby, Natalie Cole, Angelina
S38 - Rick Devons, Victoria, Wardog
S39 - Janet, Jamal,
S41 - Liana, Xander, Ricard
S42 - Omar, Chanelle, Daniel,
S43 - Cassidy, Jesse, Jeanine,

Plenty there for the producers to chew on rivalry wise too with;

Christian and Gabby
Natalie and Angelina
Liana and Xander
Chanelle and Daniel
Cassidy and Jesse (and Jesse and Jeanine)