Survivor is here! I'm making this topic so as to not clutter up the actual discussion topic, and instead keep my rambling separated. If you wanna pitch in, feel free to.
To start, the reality of reality TV - and this is something that I admit first flew right over my head - is that what we see on the screen is not always what has really (or only) happened. Only so much footage can be shown in such a short amount of time, and so because of this, the people being paid to edit the footage must get incredibly selective. With this in mind, you as the viewer have to realize that everything shown becomes important. Nothing goes to waste. Everything shown provokes something, exists for some purpose, even if it's nearly impossible to recognize for the time being. Even if it's for something so momentary and minute. The show is like a Lego set being built from the ground up.
Unlike a similar reality show in Big Brother where the ending is unknown, every current season of Survivor already has an ending established by the first episode's airing. There is already a winner of Redemption Island at this very moment amidst its cast, despite the fact that not even the winner entirely knows who they are yet. Every season builds up to its end, even if it takes some strange routes to get there. The editing team has to start with the end results - the winner, the final 2/3, and so on - and go from there, editing the show backwards, always foreshadowing events to come. You look back on a season and you say "wow, it was right there" - with analysis, we aim to capture those moments before they ultimately reveal their true purpose.
The simplest way I can describe analyzing a show like Survivor is this: think of Survivor as a 'Who Dun It?" story. We have a bunch of perpetrators, weapons, settings - so who is the killer? Who are the victims? Who are the accomplices, the distractions, the good guys, the bad guys, the background noise? Here, we have 18 contestants, a Nicaraguan beach, and 39 days to produce one winner. There is a means to the end - and those means are the story. The editing is the crafting of said story. Why are we seeing what we are seeing? Why are we hearing what we are hearing? If you look close, you can unearth the path through the editing as it's given to us.
In lieu of all this, I plan on attempting to nail down what we're seeing. I've never done this before, but I think it'll be interesting. I have a feeling that the ability for players to come back into the game will change how the editing unfolds, and thus make it somewhat more difficult to predict, but we'll see. Regardless, I'm not spoiled in any way.
We have 18 contestants, 2 of them returning players, and so here's a fun fact: In every season where players have returned, a female has won the game.
I'll post my thoughts on Episode 1 in a bit.
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ziggie ziggie wop wop