your going to end up with a benry avatar before im done with you

Weighing in on the entertainment/game value this season:

Shannon meltdown was epic. Loved Tyrone. Jimmy T was fabulously delusional and made for some entertainment. Marty's hair was second to none. Naonka may be the craziest person to ever play this game, and the stuff she has pulled boggles the mind. She's definately the turd sandwich to Benry's giant douche. Chase being Brenda's puppy and the whipping boy of this thread has been a decent line. Holly drowning Dan's shoes, looking like a psycho confessing to it, then making friends with him was pretty amusing. The Marty/Jane saga and how it affected the game was not uninteresting. Jane beasting the endurance challenges at 180 years old is pretty impressive. The rise and fall of Brenda was a good line. And everyone loves them some Fabio.

As for game play: Marty, Sash, and Brenda all have had their moments (good and bad). Alina tried, but appears to be the anti-JT in that no one wanted to allign with her after her original alliance busted up early. Naonka is a crazy loon and does herself (and her allies) more damage than good, but she has been attempting to play. Chase comes off as a giant kitty cat, BUT following the tribe split, he seemed to direct the vote offs to remerge back into the position he was in with old La Flor and there were worse positions to be in. Plus, he bonded with Jane and Holly giving him alternatives if he chose to try a different route to the end. Following the tribe switch, Jane tried the old school approach of providing for the tribe and making friends--I know "we" hate this method, but these people are semi-starving so it may have some merit. Once her obsession of outlasting Marty was satisfied, she immediately jumped on board to stab a former ally in the back--something "we" usually approve of. The only players left who haven't really been a deciding factor in the game are Dan, Benry, Kelly, and Fabio. And "we" want Fabio to win while we complain about the lack of quality play in this season. Just saying.

all the gifs except one or two are just awful

game gets much better with Brenda booted. overrated and that smug evil queen attitude was really annoying. episode also made me like NaOnka a lot more than before. jane shifts more towards looking like gollum than a human every episode.

Soncy: The answer's in Rob C's interview with Brenda (which is fantastic btw for those of you who haven't heard it yet): she says that, when the men went on the reward after the gender-split reward challenge, she told NaOnka that if Sash returned from that reward wanting to keep Marty they wouldn't be able to trust him any more. NaOnka, being closer to Sash, a. began to distrust Brenda and b. went and told Sash, causing him to distrust Brenda.

She also says (in her RNO interview) that Jane was very hostile towards her and that booting Marty was the beginning of the end for her (odd that :P)

vyk: The more people on the Benry bandwagon the better imo

FU CBS

I go to your site to try to watch the episode that I missed, and what do I see? First video: Last night's episode. Second video: Brenda at Ponderosa Pt. 1

bookmark http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/video/ and use that to watch the videos

yes, it'll still show you "life at ponderosa (brenda pt 1)" but it's way down at the bottom, so that you'd have to scroll down to see (it's decently far down on my monitor, at least, at 1920x1080). so unless you have some huge 30" monitor that should work.

but yeah, it's annoying. the network's website should be better about stuff like that.

Man this is the weirdest season I've ever seen. There are pretty much no alliances right now and we have 9 people left. I guess this is what happens when floaters band together to vote out people who try to control their votes.

I feel like it's suicide for anybody to take a leadership role. I feel like everybody should just sit back and wait for somebody to implode and everybody to turn on them. I don't think people will naturally turn on Sash. This is just such a strange season because I feel like it's a season with very little strategy being played, which makes the people who show themselves as strategic huge targets.

This entire season, nobody really even talks about numbers and having the numbers all the way. I feel like there has to be a core group of 3 (Ben, Dan, Fabio maybe) that can pick up 2 more people (Holly and Jane) and systematically vote out Chase, Nay, Kelly, and Sash. But the problem is that because nobody really has any allegiance to each other, they can flip at any time. So the moment Benry tries to bring Holly and Jane into a power alliance, they'll vote 1 person out (maybe Sash or Chase) then Holly and Jane will flip to the other side and target Benry because he stepped up and tried to take charge.

I think this is just what happens when there aren't very many leaders post-merge. Everybody wants to be with the majority because they see that as being the lowest risk play. If they're part of the huge alliance ganging up on 1 person, they're safe for that tribal and they get 1 step closer.

tyty

Seasons like this one aren't necessarily the least strategic. Take seasons like Cook Islands and Samoa, in which there were very few strategic players and in which those few were saved by the idiocy of their opponents. Those seasons which are dominated by a particular alliance are usually that way because the outsiders in that alliance are unaware of their position and/or too passive to make moves to improve their position. On this season you have Brenda, Sash, and Marty who are focused gamers, and Holly who is making moves behind the scenes. Compare that with the regular post-ASS seasons:

Vanuatu: Ami, Leann, Chris, Julie, Scout
Palau: Tom
Guatemala: Rafe
Panama: Cirie
CI: Yul, Penner
Fiji: Earl, Yau-Man, Stacy, Alex (/Dreamz if you count him)
China: Todd, Amanda, Peih-Gee
Gabon: Ken, Corinne (/Sugar)
Tocantins: Everybody except Taj, Coach, Sierra
Samoa: Russell, John, Laura

Nicaragua is actually pretty good insofar as it has a lot of people attempting to play the game. You're right that this season has a unique dynamic (a very interesting one I think everyone would agree) but it's not for want of strategy. You're right that Holly and Jane are now a swing vote duo if they want to be (and they clearly should). They have to target Sash first, but then they have more flexibility over the boot order. Holly should want to keep Benry though, because Benry is unlikely to win a jury vote and most likely to stop Jane randomly winning a crucial challenge; Fabio would be a much better target because he's more well-liked. Holly also needs to ensure that she can target Jane at any given time.

^^^

Exactly. This season doesn't have a lack of strategy, it has it in abundance. Just because there's no group of 5 that's saying "WE'LL GO TO FINAL FIVE TOGETHER AND THEN DUKE IT OUT", doesn't mean that there aren't alliances and people playing the game.

That kind of season is ****ing boring anyway. Do people really enjoy watching those 4 episode stretches where a defeated alliance is voted off one by one? That stuff is painful, and I'd in fact argue that the majority alliances that successfully pull off those strategies are the ones who play on level 0. It's an individual game, not a team one. When those alliances finally do eliminate everyone else, there's always a period of time where everyone's like "ok we win, right? what happens now?"

Agreed. I'm glad that Yul won CI, but its predictable ending made it a strategically boring post-merge; same with China, Gabon, Samoa, and the like. Everybody hates on Fiji, but at least it was more interesting post-merge than those seasons (Edgardo blindside, truck deal, Stacy trying to turn on Yau-Man but ****ing it up in two different ways, Dreamz butnahhhing Yau-Man over immunity at F4). Ditto Vanuatu, PI etc.

EDIT: If an alliance leader can keep the outsiders deluded into thinking that they're going to F3 and make sure people act irrationally, then they're definitely thinking above level 0. The problem is that all too often that passivity on the part of the outsiders is due to their own level 0 thinking rather than any proactive play by the HBIC.

Samoa was boring strategically? Wha?!

Don't get me wrong, I loved watching Russell, but the way Galu did the worst thing possible at every opportunity got irksome eventually. Watching Galu men vs. Galu women (with token Foa Foa people in there) would have been interesting since we'd get to see people like John and Laura play (and Monica/Kelly/Dave/whoever would've been forced to play), but as it was we had Russell vs. morons.

You'd have to hack my account. I am already so sick of looking at his stupid ****ing face.

Samoa was boring, but only because it was a big commercial for season 20. That season was edited to do nothing but sell Russell for HvV. He got outplayed the entire season, but you have to watch very closely to notice it, and in some cases you can't see it at all. Yet people still claim he was the only one playing. That being said, the small tribe coming back to beat the big tribe is always someone exciting to watch.

I thought this season was on its way to being another Samoa til the last few episodes. Just an amazing season.

yes, yes, much like how purple kelly is outplaying everyone at the moment albeit it is not shown a lot.


IF you watch carefully you'll notice it...

You are just insane if you think Natalie and KP are remotely similar.

Edit: Rather than waste my time with this silly debate again, Stephen says it better than I ever could: http://www.people.com/people/article...421593,00.html

LOL at Russell being outplayed in Samoa.

KARTINKENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Someone show Kos that link so he can see how stupid he is yet again, he's too immature to read my posts first hand.

Who cares, kart. Kos is crazy about Russell, we all should know that by now.

Someone said Samoa was boring strategically? OMG WHATTT YOU REALIZE RUSSELL WAS ON THAT SEASON?

Someone suggested that Natalie deserved to win Samoa? OMG WHAAAAT DO YOU REALIZE THAT THE GREATEST STRATEGIC PLAYER OF ALL TIME WAS UP AGAINST NATALIE?


Don't get me wrong. I was pissed both times that Russell lost in front of the jury. But the deifying of him and every move he ever made is tiresome. In the end, he pissed off two juries enough so that Natalie and Sandra could win. If that doesn't make you realize how terrible his ability to earn jury votes was, then there's no hope for you as a Survivor viewer.

I guess it just tilts me when someone as dumb as Kos thinks he's the smartest ever. I wish I were less of an emotional windbag, but I'm not :-P

everyone likes kelly purple, if she gets in the final and everyone is bitter at the other two, will she be more deserving to win?
(simple question)

You are making 2 big assumptions. IF they all like her and IF the jury is bitter, then yeah she will deserve it, but I don't expect either of those things will be true this season.

Edit: Well liked people are generally not the only 1 of 10 people left out of the voting loop.

Edit 2: It seems like you STILL don't understand the difference between Natalie (7 votes) and Mick (zero votes)

Who did Samoa have playing well? Russell on the moving forward level, but clearly not on the winning the game level. Then, who? The purple team voting themselves off? When Natalie sitting on Russell's coattails was the best winning 'strategy' being employed, it's probably a weak season. Not saying Russell didn't entertain me. But when most of your moves to push yourself forward in the game are damaging your chances to actually win...we probably shouldn't open this can of worms again. I'm going to end up having to start arguing Kart's position that Naonka = Russell if we go down this road.