Lurker > Underleveled

And there goes one of two people I liked on Sele.

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darkx

You know, even though I like Dekal more, I really don't want to keep seeing Sele TCs.

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darkx

290811

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darkx

Lmfao Tony singing Baby Shark!!

I missed the first few minutes (I turned on at Ethan talking about Parvati), what'd I miss?

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darkx

Peridiam posted...

Nothing too interesting. Theres a team from Love Island, a team of a married YouTube couple, and a team of radio DJs, among other random unknown teams (such as a pair of cops).

I dont think theres a theme.

Ooh who is the YouTube couple? I ask because there was one that I have watched for years and was just thinking recently they would be fun on TAR.

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darkx

Peridiam posted...

Also theyre filming TAR33 right now. Theyre on leg 3. Crazy.

Any significant casting rumors? (Celebs/semi-celebs/Survivors/houseguests)?

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darkx

There is no consistency. Some seasons get 100% spoiled (full bootlist, major events, sometimes even vote counts), others go completely unspoiled, and everything in between. Seasons with returning players tend to lean towards 100% spoiled, as you might expect. More recently, newbie seasons have been completely unspoiled with maybe one or two minor leaks per season. Ghost Island was the exception to that, which was spoiled top-to-bottom (except that they got the winner wrong).

CBS is actually really strict about it - the contract states that any contestant who violates their NDA may be sued for up to $5 million. As far as I know, the only contestant who has ever actually been reprimanded for spoilers was Alec from DvG, who was banned from the reunion an had his $10,000 appearance stipulation revoked (but not his placement-based consolation prize), but he is far from the only one who has leaked stuff. He was just the most public and brazen about it, even though what he posted paled in comparison to the full bootlists others have leaked.

I remember back in the early days, contestants were forbidden from communicating with each other until their season was finished airing and had super strict gag orders on any sort of press or anything like that, but with the advent of social media I guess at some point they realized that was a long lost cause.

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darkx

It should be noted though that MESS, which analyzes vidcaps from previews, promos, intros, and virtually anything else available to the public to determine episode-by-episode results with almost 100% accuracy got the most recent boot wrong, so who knows what's going on.

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darkx

SavageInTheBox posted...

I don't know if there is a legitimate bootlist out there, but there is a pretty visible comment on the Youtube video of the Parvati/Ethan secret scene that may spoil the Final 3. At the very least, it's viable based on Edgic.

So just avoid that!

From what I understand, the final three is (likely) known but otherwise the bootlist is not known.

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darkx

Your average contestant fails at a challenge.

Probst: If you can't do this, you don't belong out here.

Rob fails at a challenge.

Probst: This is why we keep bringing him back.

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/survivor-40-winners -at-war-why-does-jeff-probst-keep-inviting-boston-rob -back-to-compete-again-and-again.html/ (remove the spaces after winners and rob)

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darkx

Apparently TAR33 has either finished or is about to wrap up filming. And yet 32 was filmed well over a year ago and has yet to see the light of day.

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darkx

Probst has revealed that his #1 dream player for a celebrity edition of Survivor would be Neil Patrick Harris. I could see it.

Incidentally, just today I was wondering who is the most notable (pre-Survivor) person who has ever been on the show? Jimmy Johnson and Lisa Whelchel have to be the top two, and John Rocker, John Hennigan, and Mike White are probably the next tier down.

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darkx

Inviso posted...

Just watched the Criminal Minds finale. That was touching. I liked it a lot.

I kinda wish that the final season in general had some more fan-service, and that they didn't spend four out of ten episodes trying to get one guy (or hell, that it was more than 10 episodes period), and that their final Big Bad was someone truly epic that brought the whole series together (I had this crazy idea that it should have been Elle), but I did enjoy the fan service in the finale itself, and the final 15 minutes or so were fucking epic.

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darkx

They've pretty much established that people on EoE are not "in the game."

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darkx

I have no idea what the hell Danni is doing out there. She's not playing like someone who hasn't played in 15 years - she's just plain old playing like someone who hasn't played.

Kim is also playing uncharacteristically bad. What the hell was she thinking giving an idol to Sophie and not Tyson? It's hard to believe this is the same person who played what is considered by many to be the single most dominant game of Survivor ever.

Ben is still being an asshat but his edit seems to be headed in the direction of HvV Coach where it makes him look like a total joke, and if that's the case I just might be able to appreciate him a bit.

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darkx

Oh was that the advantage that Janet turned down?

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darkx

GTM posted...

last episodes were better, but there were fun moments here

Really? I thought tonight was a vast improvement over the premiere.

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darkx

Inviso posted...

This scene, with Tony, is finally a good, character-driven scene.

Tony is truly an anomaly among modern Survivor. He's such a game player and yet he's also such a fucking cartoon character.

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darkx

Showbiz Cheat Sheet

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darkx

Now there's one about JT, who is at least a winner.

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darkx

One of the top articles in my Google suggested news feed for the past few days has been "Why isn't Ozzy Lusth on 'Survivor 40: Winners at War?'" and now it's "Why isn't Russell Hantz on 'Survivor 40: Winners at War?'"

Yeah, I'm puzzled. Totally baffling omissions. Rupert, Coach, and Amanda too. Geez, where the hell are all these great winners?

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darkx

I am glad that they actually gave us some emotional background on many of the players. It was very similar to the DvG premiere in that regard. Especially impressive given that they don't do that kind of premiere much anymore, and on a season like this they could have easily gone "They know all these guys, they don't need to hear this from them." So props to them for that. But the pacing of the episodes was a mess and I hope they find a groove soon. These fast-paced scenes of everyone throwing every other name out right before tribal are annoying and an illusion of high-level strategizing, when in actuality it's probably a pretty good representation of what actually goes on out there most seasons. But it's driving further and further away from a cohesive narrative for the season, so if it keeps up it really could tank the season. Honestly, overall, it was a mid tier premiere at best.

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darkx

My rankings from the premiere, off the top of my head (by how much I liked them, not by game):

Parvati
Tony
Tyson
Sandra
Natalie
Amber
Ethan
Denise
Kim
Sophie
Rob
Michele
Yul
Danni
Jeremy
Wendell
Adam
Sarah
Nick
Ben

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darkx

What did you have for dinner tonight?

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darkx

So I dunno if anybody realized this, but in the first two episodes, nobody was eliminated from a CBS reality show for the first time, as Natalie has been eliminated from TAR (twice).

Speaking of which, this season includes four TAR alumni.

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darkx

I'm gonna have to watch Criminal Minds again. I was super tired and half-conscious through most of it.

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darkx

Surprise, Poke bitching about Sandra

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darkx

I really hope they stop these fast-paced everybody throwing out everyone else's names sequences now that both tribes will have at least tentative plans.

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darkx

Two seasons in a row where both tribes go to tribal in the first two episodes. Amazing.

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darkx

"Tony pay attention" lol

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darkx

ROB LlTERALLY CARYING HIS TRIBE ON HIS BACK!

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darkx

Ben you were the motherfucker who started throwing newschoolers' names out.

Shit I hate this douche all over again.

Tony as good as always though.

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darkx

So regarding tonight's premiere, do we know if it's a two-hour episode like the HvV premiere, or just two episodes back to back?

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darkx

I wouldn't say Chad & Stephanie were villains, not in the same vein as the other teams I listed anyway. They were just a negative bickering couple and Chad's "LET'S GO, STEPHANIE!" is right up there with Karyn's "LENNYYYYYYYYYY!" from season 1.

Couple of really good early boots, yeah. Connor & Jonathan are fun, and, even though they didn't pan out on the show, I really wished Andie & Jenna had gotten to go further. This was actually the first season that I watched as it aired, having marathoned 1-16 that summer, and I remember going in they were the team I was rooting for because of their story, and then they were out in episode 2 and I was like, oh, that's a bummer.

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darkx

Naye745 posted...

the fourth place team was pretty unfortunate

This is the team who my opinion of tanked. I remember them being this hilariously stupid team with their only bad moment being when Nick literally took a nap during a detour that he didn't feel like finishing... yeah no that was far from their worst moment. It's too bad because they did have some funny moments of dumbassery but God they the uncomfortable moments really outweighed them.

The whole F3 was great and I really didn't expect anything from Jill & Thomas going in except to be the generic Ken & Barbie that made it through the race and I STILL don't know exactly what it was that made me like them this time around because on paper they are actually fairly bland for what I like to refer to as the "Cocky Cutthroat" archetype (the Rob/Amber, Misti/Jim, Justin/Diana, etc). But they had enough little moments that added up to make me enjoy them far more than I thought I would.

Brook & Claire are all-time God-tier though. Holy shit.

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darkx

TAR17 rewatched... wow I went through that one quickly! Must've been good! (it was)

One team is currently ranked as my overall #3 so far! it's the obvious one

And my opinion of two teams improved tremendously.

My opinion of another team absolutely fucking tanked though :-\

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darkx

I honestly think I might check out of discussion for this season completely and try to watch it as casually as possible and see of that improves my enjoyment of it.

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darkx

My prediction: BvW3 happens sometime from 43-46, EoE is on that season, and then it goes away forever.

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darkx

LMFAO

I haven't watched this yet.

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darkx

Jet & Cord aren't even Sucks' least-favorite team of the season. Louie & Michael, Carol & Brandy, and sometimes even Joe & Heidi (another relatively inoffensive team whose hate baffles me) finish below them in the annual popularity poll.

The hypocritical morality bullshit that is a big part of why I hate TAR4 so much, while not nearly as bad as in that season, is a running theme, where people will hold a grudge against someone for the entire race for cutting in line or making a relatively benign comment in the first leg. I'm looking at the detectives and Miss Teen South Carolina and her whipped pussy boyfriend, and since both those teams lasted so long and were the second- and third-most visible teams of the season, it was every episode that we had to hear them complaining about how awful most of the rest of the teams were, while they did their own shitty stuff. At least the cowboys and Carol/Brandy were in for most of the season, so they bring the season up for me. It straddles the line between my yellow and orange, so it's not the worst of the worst, but that's a huge drop from the top tier I had it at when I first watched 1-16.

Also, I can't speak for them on BB because I haven't seen their season, but I found Jordeff really cute, ignoring one bad episode. Jordan was a delightful dumbass, and Jeff was occasionally pretty funny.

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darkx

TAR16 rewatched. My positive memories of that one definitely tanked, but I can at least say that my least-favorite team from my first watch, Carol & Brandy, became my second-favorite team upon rewatching (Jet & Cord 1.0 still so good).

In other news, only one more SD season!

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darkx

MartinFF7 posted...

You know, I meant to post this after the rank down but that reminded me. Seems a lot of people who love Reem hate the concept of EoE. Isn't there some dissonance there, the only reason she's known and beloved is due to that game element..?

I'll address this in a few points...
1 - I hate the execution of EoE much more than I hate the concept. I'm fine with buybacks in moderation. Outcasts was fine because it happened once at the merge and there was even a chance for the players still in the game proper to prevent it entirely. Redemption Island would have been acceptable as a one-time twist if it had ended at the merge. Same goes for Edge of Extinction. The problem with the latter two is that they kept going post-merge in all of their appearances and became complete airtime-sucks that in 3/4 cases amounted to very little.
2 - Reem is the upside to a twist that had a TON of downsides. I enjoyed Reem a lot. I'm not going to say "we only got a full season of Reem because of a shitty twist, so I'm going to hate her." I'm also not going to say "Reem was amazing so that means EoE wasn't an awful twist." Most of us are able to have deeper, more complex opinions than that.

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darkx

EoE DVD cover is Chris + Lesu. Barf. Wendy, Reem, Aurora and Ron were all top tier characters and they all lose out to the one of the shittiest alliances ever.

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darkx

Let's be real, the game hasn't been about outwitting, outplaying and outlasting the other players for a while. It's been about outsmarting the game itself since roughly Cambodia, and has been full bore since Game Changers.

But yeah, Eliza is spot on. But the same can be said for any of the insane amount of twists that have piled up over the last five years.

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darkx

Naye745 posted...

(and the best team is less painful to see eliminated as they got a 2nd chance)

Considering the two best teams have not returned, nope.

I'm about halfway through 16 so far and it's.. eh. I see why Sucks (or anyone for that matter) hates it, even if I don't think it's that bad.

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darkx

TAR15 rewatch beated. That wasn't as bad as I remember. Still not great, but might avoid the bottom third.

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darkx

MartinFF7 posted...

...but the completely unnecessary "sneak peek" snippets at the beginning of episodes was the worst change of all

Yeah these are teh suck. TAR tried this shit one season and immediately realized it was stupid.

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darkx

So I'm just finding out that IoI didn't get an opening theme at all. Even up through EoE they made them and put them online.

Modern Survivor.

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darkx

Tagging this finally

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darkx

I was gonna say I didn't think Probst was executive producer when Redemption Island was a thing, but it looks like he actually got promoted right before it.

Although RI did come back for BvW and was supposed to come back again for SJDS before being replaced with the loved one duels, and Probst has openly expressed that he's not opposed to bringing it back yet again.

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darkx