Board 8 > Survivor Crew Ranks The Survivor Seasons

(+) Yeah! (+)

In retrospect I really really want to like Dreamz because he was almost singlehandedly responsible for making the season interesting (while he was not the only interesting person, almost everything interesting that did happen boiled down to him in some way), and while he doesn't seem like an actual bad person, some of the stuff he said and did was so cringeworthy and at times outright despicable that I just can't.
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Underleveled posted...

My prediction:
36. Redemption Island
35. Ghost Island
34. One World
33. Samoa
32. South Pacific
31. Worlds Apart
30. Thailand
29. Nicaragua
28. Caramoan
27. All-Stars
26. Fiji

Came so close to getting the bottom 10 right, albeit in the wrong order. I overestimated the Samoa hate but expect it to show up soon.
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Double update! #26 now, #25 in about two hours.

#26: Samoa
Average Ranking: 24.18

darkx: 17 - Hear me out. If you ignore Russell's insanely oversaturated edit, there's actually a lot to love about this season - Erik's nutty adventures, crazy Shambo, the king of one-liners Dave Ball, a dramatic medivac, and a surprising but deserving winner. Even Russell himself was at least an entertaining villain, leading me to believe that had the editors done their fucking job and not just made this a season-long preview for HvV, this could have been a near-elite season.

Mana Sword: 18 - No writeup

DoctorBlind: 18 - Now Im not the biggest Russell Hantz fan out there, but I cant deny his presence improved the season. First time I can really remember idols being abused (which sort of spawned a trend I dont enjoy), but it did make tribal councils thoroughly enjoyable. Pretty lame cast overall though.

Inviso: 22 - Samoa is a lot like Africa in that the season ends up revolving around one REALLY strong personality, and I feel like ones enjoyment of the season is dependent on whether or not you can tolerate that personality. In my case, I cannot, but Im also willing to admit that the season would have been dull without said player. Granted, without said player, maybe the editors do a better job of balancing the edit so that one person doesnt get nearly triple the next-highest player in terms of confessional count. But whatever. Its hard to truly judge Samoa because for every positive, there is an equal and opposite negative, and they balance out to a rather bland season. The post-merge ispretty dull and drawn out, but at the same time, theres a little bit of life, and the ending salvages the season a LITTLE bit with some unpredictability. Its still very much below average though.

GTM: 22 - CGI Brett the silent assassin

Illuminatus: 26 - No writeup

BCT: 27 - The worst edited season to date. If I have to hear AHM RUSSELL HANTZ one more time just shoot me. The challenges were bad, the weather beat too much personality out of people (Jaison, anyone?), and the edit just made everything terrible.

YoRyan: 27 - top 10 season turned into a bottom 10 season because of editing

FBike: 28 - The only thing saving Samoa for being considered as one of the bottom 5 is Russell. We might not like him, but most first-time viewers did.

eaed: 30 - In my rewatch, I think I liked Samoa a lot more than I thought I would. The arrogance that screamed off of the members of the Galu tribe made the Foa-Foas seem almost likeable. Also, while dominating in the amount of confessionals, Russell 1.0 isnt that overwhelming. I found him almost rootable at times. However, once Foa-Foa turns Shambo it really gets one-sided and dark and then the boringness takes over.

Naye745: 31 - the purple tribe actually had a lot of good characters - Dave Ball, Laura, Erik, even Shambo, but the Russell show consumed everything and the season hurts for it. gets minor brownie points for building up the entire season's plot to show why Russell lost (and Natalie won).
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#25: Game Changers
Average Ranking: 23.82

darkx: 18 - No writeup

FBike: 19 - All-Star seasons very rarely live up to the hype. We're now digging right into the "BIG MOVES" era, with way too many twists and very little meaningful socializing being shown on screen.

Inviso: 20 - I will fully admit that this is a less-than-impressive season. In fact, the final two episodes single-handedly tank Game Changers far lower than it wouldve been at the final nine. Honestly, Game Changers is outright GOOD in EVERY episode where there isnt some twist taking up a fuckton of screen time. So every episode except four, six, twelve, and the finale. Are some of the remaining episodes weaker than others? Yeah. The premiere, episode three, the merge, and episode eleven are all kinda basic, but theyre inoffensive at worst. Meanwhile, this season has all-star character performances from most of the pre-merge boots, a bunch of players giving their best performance ever, and honestly? I think there is only one player who actually made me like them LESS this season than I already felt towards them (and no, its not the instigator of a certain incident that most people hate.) Theres just a lot of craziness and plenty of strategy coming from players that actually have the personalities to carry it off properly. Do I wish the producers laid off the twists and let the game play out a little more organically? Obviously. But Game Changers winds up as an extremely interesting season, even if its extremely flawed as well.

GTM: 20 - remember when sandra somehow survived like 4 tribal councils and proved she was the best. and then michaela drank tea at tribal. everything after that was a blur.

Illuminatus: 21 - No writeup

eaed: 22 - If for nothing else, this season had all of the potential to be an absolutely amazing season. What this season lacks is the natural shake ups that occur in other seasons. It becoming a natural stand still, the overwhelming amount of advantages and idols, and then of course advantagegeddon. That being said I was living for this season from week to week when it aired and thats why it is higher than the episodes below it but this is as high as I can allow it to go.

YoRyan: 24 - proved that even Cirie can't carry a season on her own

Naye745: 25 - feels like the editing and bad luck made this one feel a lot worse than it actually was. Cirie got screwed, Malcolm got screwed, and Sandra was by far the star of the season in only 6 episodes. Varner's boot episode is still deeply unpleasant and stains the season. And i feel like the show spent so much time desperately making sure we knew Sarah deserved to win that we missed so much of everyone else. this might be too high.

BCT: 26 - This season is an overproduced mess of twists that taint the gameplay of an all-star cast, and it features more redundant challenges, an obvious winners edit, and one of the worst Tribal Council shockers in the history of the show. The level of play was high and the personalities were highlighted well, but theres just too much on the negative side from a production standpoint that punished those playing the hardest for no reason at all. This is the start of the Second Dark Age.

DoctorBlind: 32 - As someone who tends to develop an intense rooting interest in my favorites, reverse the pecking order of the actual season here and Id like it a whole lot more. Very unlikable group to finish out the season.

Mana Sword: 35 - No writeup
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DoctorBlind - 72
Inviso - 60
Illuminatus - 53
YoRyan - 51
Mana Sword - 51
darkx - 44
eaed - 38
FBike - 35
BlueCrystalTear - 34
GTM - 28
Naye745 - 20

Naye and Doc are pulling away with their normality and unnormality.
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i only had 1 season show up so far that wasnt on my own bottom 12 lol
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I dont remember if the tea was this season either im losing it
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yeah that was during JT's boot; you're safe this time
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bwburke94 posted...

The premiere... are all kinda basic

I hope you just mean the first half and not the epic Sandra-Tony showdown.
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Game Changers is like a BrantSteele simulation where you're not that happy with the results.
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I mean I think that's generally how most all-star seasons go except maybe HvV.
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Everything in Lame Changers sucked after Queen Sandra got screwed by a swap. Idiots will say "SEE! That proves she's overrated." Thing is, the Queen could have gotten out of that if she wasn't wearing an "I WON TWICE" Post-It on her forehead. Andrea, Zeke, and Sarah were all rightfully scared of her. There was nothing she could do because of her frightening reputation. Cirie was the best player that season but Queen Sandra was a close second. Really, the way those two got screwed leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me look back upon the season negatively. I also think their attempt to create "Big Movez" by force is what is killing the show. At least Cambodia got to play out naturally, but the seeds were there.

As for Samoa, it will no longer hold the "Worst edited season" title once S38 happens. Ghost Island was close enough to dethroning it. Samoa explained why Russell lost but didn't show Natalie White enough. Russell was a good player early, aside from a few unnecessary lies, but it all fell apart when he crowned himself a god. He went into HvV knowing he'd won Samoa. That's a large reason he was so upset when he lost - he was 100% sure the title was his and played his second go under that assumption. It's probably also why Natalie shot him down, even when he offered all his prize money to her. She wanted to have the satisfaction of making him look like a fool.
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I think you misspelt the name of the season. The season is called "Game Changers."
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Hantz didn't offer all of his prize money to her, just 10K.

Also Sandra's winner status probably didn't affect her placement at all aside from maybe being voted out one round before Jeff Varner. There were four opportunities to take her out before then including a big bullshit-twisty blindside, and people went for what they perceived as bigger fish to fry in three of them, then JT flushed his game down the toilet.
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Underleveled posted...

Hantz didn't offer all of his prize money to her, just 10K.

Incorrect. He offered $10,000. She refused. He then offered $100,000 when Probst followed up on that. She refused that also.

Also Sandra's winner status probably didn't affect her placement at all aside from maybe being voted out one round before Jeff Varner.

You underestimate the Queen's ability to lie. She could have pinned some of the Tavua group against each other. Or lied that Tai was talking about taking Ozzy out first at the merge and gotten him out to weaken Culpepper's side of Nuku. I think, if Varner went out before Sandra, she would have pulled it off and made merge.
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Underleveled posted...

I mean I think that's generally how most all-star seasons go except maybe HvV.

Between the CBS trifecta, I'd say the general consensus is that this only applies to Survivor All-Stars, Game Changers, and TAR24.
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To be fair, BB7s finalists were Boogie and Erika.
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I don't think that or TAR11's ending ruin the season though. It's only at the very last episode where it goes haywire.

Bear in mind when I said results I didn't just mean the ending.
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I just decided to BrantSteele a Survivor: Legends season to see how crazy it would come out, and it was... certainly something.

Pre-Jury:
20th - Boston Rob
19th - Parvati
18th - Kass
17th - Jerri
16th - Stephenie
15th - Amanda
14th - Richard

Jury:
13th - Tai
12th - Spencer
11th - Ozzy
10th - Russell
9th - Ciera
8th - Tina
7th - Cirie
6th - Sue
5th - Fairplay
4th - Rupert

F3:
3rd - Colby (Jury votes from Sue and Tina)
2nd - Sandra (Jury votes from Fairplay, Cirie, Russell, and Spencer)
1st - Coach (Jury votes from Rupert, Ciera, Ozzy, Tai, and Colby)

Fan Favorite - Inviso's main man Spencer Bledsoe
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yeah some of that makes no sense lol, ESPECIALLY Coach of all people winning. (Only qualm I have with your cast is that Sue, a quitter, would be brought back)

Boston Rob and Parvati being first two out DOES make sense, though
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Espeon posted...

To be fair, BB7s finalists were Boogie and Erika.

I think CBS would have saw this as win because of their alignment with Will and Janelle.
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KujikawaRising posted...

Only qualm I have with your cast is that Sue, a quitter, would be brought back

I simply took who I believed to be the 10 most iconic men and women in Survivor history. You could probably argue some in or out, but I think the women are rock solid. It was particularly hard to leave off Tony/Penner/Malcolm.

The jury votes are really the most baffling thing to me though. The only ones that really make sense from an outside perspective are Tina for Colby and Cirie for Sandra.
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fwiw tar11 was totally ruined by the ending
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TAR11 was definitely hurt by the ending but I don't think it was necessarily ruined. It was still a solid (not amazing) season that's better than most people give it credit for.
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it was an okay season but had lots of problems!
and then the ending happened, and yikes
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Underleveled posted...

I simply took who I believed to be the 10 most iconic men and women in Survivor history. You could probably argue some in or out, but I think the women are rock solid. It was particularly hard to leave off Tony/Penner/Malcolm.

The jury votes are really the most baffling thing to me though. The only ones that really make sense from an outside perspective are Tina for Colby and Cirie for Sandra.

BrantSteele doesn't care about outside relationships, so...
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FBike1 posted...

Underleveled posted...

I simply took who I believed to be the 10 most iconic men and women in Survivor history. You could probably argue some in or out, but I think the women are rock solid. It was particularly hard to leave off Tony/Penner/Malcolm.

The jury votes are really the most baffling thing to me though. The only ones that really make sense from an outside perspective are Tina for Colby and Cirie for Sandra.

BrantSteele doesn't care about outside relationships, so...

I know. I'm just saying it looks odd/funny.
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#24: Cook Islands
Average Ranking: 23.09

Illuminatus: 12 - No writeup

GTM: 15 - becky is underrated

Naye745: 17 - a good winner and a good finish; possibly lucky that a mixed-race, non-white coalition ended up taking control in the very controversial (and thoroughly unnecessary) race-themed season. Penner is just great. That said, a lot of the cast were duds, and a lot of the people involved had their best seasons as returnees after CI.

BCT: 24 - A season I had better memories of than it would produce upon a rewatch, Cook has too many filler cast members (edits fault?), too racy of a theme, and an overpowered idol. Sure, Yul is a great strategic winner, but too much of his win is due to his Hidden Invulnerability Idol. Highs include Penners color commentary, a jerk getting an early comeuppance (J.P.), an awe-inspiring Tribal Council set, and a legend emerging from a hot tub.

eaed: 24 - I think this is a season that ridiculously overlooked by its opening theme and it accusations of being fixed. This season tended to drag at times but I really dont think it is that bad and the challenges that the 4 overcame to win really are fun to watch but at the end of the day. It was really only okay with a large group of players that just mean nothing to me. I dont know if I could come up with them on a sporcle quiz.

Mana Sword: 25 - No writeup

DoctorBlind: 25 - Pretty bad opening concept and a worse overpowered idol, but I do love starting with four smaller tribes. Enjoyable seeing the underdog story play out as well.

FBike: 26 - I'm not complaining about the whole "tribes divided by race" thing. It is far from the biggest problem with this season. The Final 3 was actually a good thing, but it in combination with the super-idol broke the game.

Inviso: 28 - Cook Islands big drawing point was the fact that it was going to be all about race. The casting department found the most diverse cast ever up to that point, and divided them up into a tribe of white people, a tribe of black people, a tribe of Hispanic people, and a tribe of Asian people. On paper, this sounds interesting. In practice, it was not. The problem is that this cast (compared to the equally-diverse cast of Fiji one season later) was very calm. I dont know if people were just trying to play nice to better represent their race, but there just isnt a lot of personality in this group of players. Throw in some producer manipulation to benefit one alliance over the other, and you have a very bland season in which the underdogs dominate and were just supposed to be happy because theyre underdogs. No thanks.

darkx: 28 - Like with Ghost Island, I respect the producers for trying an idea that was taboo even back then, and flat-out wouldn't get past the network today, even if it was just a ratings stunt. Unfortunately, it led to one of the most boring casts ever, with the defining moment being a telegraphed underdog story that to this day many fans believe was rigged. I'll give it this - the Cook Islands are without a doubt the most beautiful location Survivor has ever visited.

YoRyan: 30 - if survivor ever jumped the shark, it'd be with this
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darkx posted...

I'll give it this - the Cook Islands are without a doubt the most beautiful location Survivor has ever visited.

The current Fiji location might be slightly better, but we're so tired of it already that I can see why you'd say this since Cook Island is second (Micronesia third).

And yeah, the race thing may also have contributed to several people being duds. The diversity of the cast wasn't necessarily a good thing - they shouldn't be casting spots based on demographic. They should be shooting for diversity of personality, which is somewhat affected by race.

Also I hate Ozzy.
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Fiji had the same ethnic diversity, but also had diversity of personality as well. I dont know if casting chosen a group that would be relatively inoffensive, or if the cast was on their best behavior because the twist made them representatives of their race, but it wound up boring either way.
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DoctorBlind - 73
Illuminatus - 65
Inviso - 64
YoRyan - 57
Mana Sword - 52
darkx - 48
eaed - 38
FBike - 37
GTM - 37
BlueCrystalTear - 34
Naye745 - 27

I don't care for things being called fixed but if you don't like the underdogs in Cooks then I can understand how you can go there.
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Yeah, Fiji was an attempt to "make up" for Cook Islands while proving that the diversity wasn't just a play for ratings, but it was significantly undermined by an even WORSE twist that made the first five episodes so hard to get through.

If Fiji didn't have that stupid "haves vs. have-nots" twist, it would very likely be significantly higher than Cook Islands on my list. As long as we still got things like the first Spy Shack, Yau-Man's corny fake idol, and of course The Edgardo Blindside.
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And the Jeff Phone.
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idk though. Those 5 episodes is a real throwback (which is weird for season 14) to those that want to see them survive because those have nots REALLY had to survive and the confessionals by Rocky and Lisi on that side really made things even more dramatic of how just bad those things are. As you can tell, I loved Fiji lol
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Underleveled posted...

My prediction:
36. Redemption Island
35. Ghost Island
34. One World
33. Samoa
32. South Pacific
31. Worlds Apart
30. Thailand
29. Nicaragua
28. Caramoan
27. All-Stars
26. Fiji
25. Game Changers

I DID end up correctly predicting the seasons that would comprise the bottom third. Let's see if I can do that two more times.
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id imagine it will be pretty easy to predict the top 12 seasons after the first 24 are revealed
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Moving to a new computer, so no update today. (As if the delays weren't already bad enough...)
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we have 2 months till the next season
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Cook Islands has some of the most blatantly terrible editing in Survivor, especially for an old school season. It should be in the pits among the worst of Survivor.
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Surskit posted...

Cook Islands has some of the most blatantly terrible editing in Survivor, especially for an old school season. It should be in the pits among the worst of Survivor.

Samoa, Ghost Island, and S38 are all still worse. I say that and 38 hasn't even aired yet, I know. It's guaranteed to be worse.

Cook Islands is definitely one of the worst-edited seasons, and now I think I might have ranked it a bit too high here. Why the hell did an old list of mine have it really high? That rewatch really opened my eyes to the truth to how it's a sucky season. My IRL Survivor buddy says it's the worst one. And I understand it, but... at least that season brought us Penner, Parv, and Yul. I'd love to see Yul play again without an Invulnerability Idol to see how he'd do.
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#23: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers
Average Ranking: 21.73

GTM: 17 - ben winning by bullshit burying people with his sledgehammer

YoRyan: 17 - the ending and f4 are, obviously, terrible. But the rest of the season is filled with terrible players who make really petty moves. Ben and Chrissy are hilarious mirror images of each other

Inviso: 18 - Stupid season name aside, HHH is actually a lot better than people give it credit for. Dont get me wrong, the final twist is unforgivable and managed to turn a potential top ten season into more of a mid-tier season, but just as much as I hate people claiming Ghost Island is suddenly not that bad because of ITS ending, its not right for me to dock TOO many points for how HHH ended. I think HHH has a strong cast with only a few duds, most of which are eliminated pre-merge. The pre-merge isnt amazing, but its passable enough, especially since the lack of real blindsides leads to a lot more personalization of the characters, which makes me more invested come the merge. Admittedly, HHH goes overboard with the idols (I think only two post-merge tribal councils go by without an idol being played), but for the most part, they only really become relevant at the endgame, and again, I value the character development of the endgame players. Seriously, Im normally happy when a season gives me a final SIX thats filled with stars, but Id say HHH goes back as far as the final NINE before you hit a dud. Its a real shame that the producers couldnt just let the game play out once we reached the final two episodes. Much like Game Changers, the shift from the players decisions to productions choices hurts the narrative. But its still a strong season up to that point, and honestly, Im okay with everything up until the final four tribal council, so yeah. Its a decent season.

darkx: 19 - A very solid season until near the end, but holy shit those last two episodes and reunion were painful and really ruined the ride.

BCT: 21 - A bad ending ruined what was a fun buildup. The clear favoritism by production, badly executed F4 twist (the cast should have known in advance), worst challenge in Survivor history (a rock draw for loved ones? REALLY?), abundance of idols, and overall lack of joy taint what could have been an awesome season. Still has some good moments, mostly in the episode after the Epic Blindside, and an edit that was only unfair to one person that made merge.

Mana Sword: 21 - No writeup

Naye745: 21 - this had all the makings of a really great season: an excellent cast, great pre-merge drama, and players willing to shake things up and fight to win the game. sadly ben found like 6 idols at endgame and got saved at f4 by a random twist that screwed Devon. it's a shame, because if Devon goes with Chrissy and Ryan to f3, i think he wins and it's remembered as one of the best recent seasons. instead it goes down as a reminder of the biggest problems of present-day survivor.

FBike: 22 - Stupid title and dumb twists aside, at least there was a social game of some kind being played. You can't say that about most of our bottom entries.

DoctorBlind: 23 - This wouldve been ranked a lot higher if not for the terribly stupid twist at the end that was never communicated with the players beforehand. I actually enjoyed the cast, as many were distinct players with their own individual gameplays. That finale just left such a bad taste in my mouth.

eaed: 26 - I know. The final 4 twist. I know. There are people out there that think it was rigged. I know. Strategy, strategy, strategy. But the players in this season are just so dynamic and we are very fortunate that the players that arent particularly good on screen happened to go earlier (outside of JP) but it is only those players and some of the real positive moments that makes this better than the season below it.

Illuminatus: 34 - No writeup
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i like that eaed's writeup is written as if he expected everyone to be lower than him
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and 38 probably will be a clusterfuck but that's like, not even keeping an open mind >.>
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the funny thing about hhh is the secret twist was supposed to prevent fans from getting mad about the end of the game

guess they missed the boat on that one lol
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Naye745 posted...

the funny thing about hhh is the secret twist was supposed to prevent fans from getting mad about the end of the game

guess they missed the boat on that one lol

If only they had done it in MvGX lol
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I like where HHH fell on my list. It would have been 5+ spots higher had that garbage twist not occurred. Did they not realize that the fans would protest the blatant favoritism and rigging toward an alpha male type?

Had that twist not occurred at all, Devon or Chrissy wins. Devon could have articulated his game quite well and the evidence the jury saw firsthand - him voting for Dr. Mike out of paranoia that proved to be spot on - and that might've been enough to beat Chrissy's lackluster performance.

Had the cast known about it - and had they included Probst telling them in the edit - the reaction wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I still hate it because it removes purity from the game. It's about surviving the vote. Sigh...
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Naye745 posted...

the secret twist was supposed to prevent the producers from getting mad about the end of the game

Ftfy
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KujikawaRising posted...

I like where HHH fell on my list. It would have been 5+ spots higher had that garbage twist not occurred. Did they not realize that the fans would protest the blatant favoritism and rigging toward an alpha male type?

Had that twist not occurred at all, Devon or Chrissy wins. Devon could have articulated his game quite well and the evidence the jury saw firsthand - him voting for Dr. Mike out of paranoia that proved to be spot on - and that might've been enough to beat Chrissy's lackluster performance.

Had the cast known about it - and had they included Probst telling them in the edit - the reaction wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I still hate it because it removes purity from the game. It's about surviving the vote. Sigh...

I think there is this feeling that they are tired of hearing casual fans say "I liked it better when they used to actually survive.." because unfortunately whenever I tell people I watch Survivor that is up there with things I always hear with "that's still on" and "I used to watch it when that gay guy won" ... I don't know the most politically correct people.
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Illuminatus - 76
DoctorBlind - 73
Inviso - 69
YoRyan - 63
Mana Sword - 54
darkx - 52
GTM - 43
eaed - 41
FBike - 38
BlueCrystalTear - 36
Naye745 - 29
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watch out illuminatus im coming for you
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