The Official Survivor: China discussion thread (spoilers possible)
 

usually i am amped for the new season to start, which is this thursday, (so i thought it would be time to start this show's thread)...so i watched a preview special on the TV Guide channel yesterday and am so annoyed now that I dont know if am gonna watch this edition.



[putting this in spoiler tags just in case people want to be surprised on thursday]

um, cuz she's damn hot! This picture has her in bikini's and if that is not ok, a mod can go ahead and delete it....no problem, but dont click on the spoiler tag if you are offended and it's probably NSFW.

This show's still on?

not denying her hotness...i just think its stupid that someone with that much of a public persona is on the show

then don't watch

She's like a H-list celebrity, if there is such a thing.

Probably no more famous than Gary Hogeboom.

'cept hotter

I do this every season, so let's get it out of the way now: using a thread title that welcomes spoilers is pretty pointless since 90% of the people who watch the show want to avoid them at all costs. Seems like you can either have a thread for discussing the show with everyone who watches it, or one where spoilers are possilbe, but not both.

she isnt even that hot imo. sure shes easy on the eyes, but not crotch adjusting hot

i would tell you how, but i dont know how to post a spoiler tab

All you do is put spoiler in brackets before your text and you put /spoiler in brackets after your text. It's just like if you wanted to bold or quote something except you use the word spoiler.

Ok, Survivor was interesting. I was surprised at who was voted out. I would go further but I can't figure out how to the spoiler thing the post so I will leave it at that. But I definitely have a few favorites and a couple of contestants that I dislike already.

type "[spoiler " and close the words spoiler with the other bracket "]" and dont use quotes. then when youre done typing the spoiler type "[/spoiler " and close that with a "]"

I didn't like the New York woman and I seem to be pulling for James the Gravedigger already.

OH and they are on the same team, so I'm torn already. :)

ditto

Also, Ashley is not that hot. This season should be called Survivor: Boobs

Agreed, James is a beast. Not sure who to root for on the other tribe. I guess Dave by default.

FUCK.

I HATE how survivor changes it's Tivo name every year. Looks like I missed the first episode.

Goddamnit.

Talk about dissapointed. I thought this Ashley person was supposed to be hot? She looks butt ugly with fake boobs, add annoying and you have a whole trifecta of reasons to holpe she makes an early exit.

Casting Ashley from the WWE doesn't seem to be a publicity stunt on the part of the WWE anyway, since she was trying very hard to keep anyone in the WWE from knowing when she asked for an extended leave earlier in the year. However, as always happens, she let it slip to a close friend and the word got out fast. She subsequently got fired from the WWE IIRC.

Thanks.

I am also pulling for James and seem him going in with the Christian radio show host. BTW even though I am not a religious person that much I agreed that the Buddhist ceremony was worship like. And having dealt with Buddhist in Korea for years I can say for sure that the image of the nice quiet and benevolent monk isa crock of a shit. They can and usually are some of the biggest assessholes any ways...........

The wrestler chick should have been voted out and yeah she is really puck rock white trashish ugly. I can't really understand why Chicken got voted out. The producer did a poor job of showing us why he might be voted out. It seems voting him out just displays that tribes complete lack of planning. I guess they din't care for his telling them building there "home" on a flood plain was a bad idea.

I told my wife she should've sucked it up and just faked it, like 90% of Americans do when they go to Church.

Yep. Churchy girl and wrestler girl need to go.

They did a great job IMO. At first the guy would shit all over other people's ideas - not in a constructive way, very condescending - and like a baby he decided to clam up when he didn't the the approval the wanted. The "doesn't matter to me, whatever you want to do" schtick was childish, and it was great when P.G. called him out on it. His attempt to talk the young dude into voting Ashley off showed how whiny and bitter he was. I knew he was a goner as soon as they started focusing on his bad attitude.

Dola

FWIW, the editors do a very deliberate job of framing the contestants that are going to be among the final few. Someone on another site (TV w/o pity?) analyzed the first episodes for several past seasons and discovered that the players that last the longest in the game are portrayed in the first episode or two as very even-handed, insightful, intelligent, and savvy. On the other hand, contestants that get air time being arrogant, bitchy, whiny, and complainers are voted out early.

Using this data, they've predicted the winner of the last 3 Survivors based on the first episode only, and usually get all of the top 2 or 3.

I didn't watch the show, but caught the "greeting" as I was leaving the house. I'm not super religious, but I have my Catholic faith. I wouldn't be able to go through that greeting ceremony either. Doesn't matter what they said, it still looked like they were bowing down in front of Buddha.

If God is all knowing, he knows you aren't worshipping Buddha. You can even say it in your head as you're doing it.

That's stupid. So I can be killing someone, as long as in my head I believe I'm not and tell myself I'm not... it's ok?

Yes, there's been a definite pattern the past few years on how the first episode is edited.

In fact, last year my wife and I picked Earl as the winner after the first episode, because his edit was almost exactly like Yul's. It was so close that you assumed it has to be a red herring, but it wasn't. It was an obvious giveaway if you knew what to look for.

From a first viewing of last night's show, you can already eliminate about half the players as potential winners, but there's no obvious winner that I could see.

But God KNOWS you are not trying to worship the Buddha. He KNOWS you are just going through the motions of kneeling in front of some stupid statue to please the show's producers and not upset tribe mates. If he's going to not let you in heaven for that, that's just sad.

Comparing it to killing somebody but saying you don't mean it is beyond stupid. One is an empty gesture that means nothing, while in the other you're actually killing someone.

Kneeling/bowing before another God, whether you mean it or not, does mean something. I think. I'm not up to snuff with exact rules and stuff, but I know I personally would've felt uncomfortable and not done it too.

The gravedigger was my favorite also, but I agree that the wrestler girl should go.. I didn't mind the churchy girl as much, even with her issue regarding the greeting. From what they gave us on the show, it seemed that other than the greeting ceremony, she didn't really push much or be annoying to others. I bet we have something happen between her and that airline steward in the way of a blow up in future episodes though.

I thought it was funny when the poker guy said he didn't believe that he was a flight attendant. To me, he quite obviously seemed just like a flight attendant.

correction - Ashley is still employed by the WWE.

I can see this being something that depends on your level of religiousness. If you aren't terribly religious, faking it in front of another idol won't seem so bad. If you are very religious, even faking it is probably a big deal. I would like to think that a person could continue to pray while going through the motions, but then I am not terribly religious.

Take the deep religious discussions to PM, please.

I'm done. :) I just happened to see this yesterday and wanted to comment that I would've done the same thing.

I was done too. I think we've said about all that can be said on the topic.

So any bets on how soon before Courtney gets booted? I'm assuming that she is the first off when her tribe has to vote.

Amen.

Take it to PMs!!!!! :mad:




:D

my first vote would have been for the PG girl without question...yeah ashley was a bit of a wuss with the whole throwing up bit, but the crying after losing the challenge is weak. and then to start barking out orders after the tears were wiped away?! see-ya.

my favorite line of the entire thing was the skinny snot-rag from new york commenting that she wasnt wearing a bra....look around sweetheart....you have less than A-cups....it doesnt matter if you werent wearing a shirt...no one would have noticed.

my wife on the other hand enjoyed the E/F cup woman who did the challenge in her bra and underwear because she only wore a dress to the departure....there are going to be a lot of blur shots while she is in the game.

The New Yorker (Courtney) wasn't the one that made the comment. Jaime is the one that made the comment. The time she made the comment was about the only time you saw her. She at least had something interesting upstairs.

This is pretty much the exact opposite of the story I've seen.

on the preview show i was talking about in post 1, Jeff is talking about james and says something to the effect that he is easily the strongest and post powerful player they have ever had, and that James claims not to work out at all...that he got that way from manually digging graves since he was 13 years old.


they have the full episode available at http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor15/



i went back and checked, and you are correct sir....i didnt actually realize there were two blondes, because like you said, i dont think jamie was ever on screen again.

I would buy this. That guy was huge, but I would imagine digging graves is hard work. I hope we see more of him. They seemed to be setting him up as a gentle giant.


Jaime was a much better person to be stuck without a bra. I can only think that Courtney was such a bitch because she hadn't eaten in the last few weeks. I really wish women wouldn't allow themselves to become so scary thin and I really wish Hollywood and fashion magazines would stop glamorizing that.

Courtney claimed to be a waitress. Anybody believe this is really her chosen profession? She looked like someone that could be trying to break into modeling or acting...

Uhh, yeah, it's totaly false. WWE was in fact, approached by Survivor to send someone and they chose Ashley. I'm not sure why, but that's how it went.

Or crack-whore!

Is James from a small town or something? Around here, they dig graves with a backhoe, at least thefew I have seen.

All this talk of god and see who shows up? :D

Anyhow yeah, I'm surprised he manually digs graves. I thought even small towns used a backhoe. The cemetery I worked in used the backhoe and shovels for small parts of it.

Grave digger for the mafia?

I pretty much knew Chicken was going based on how much of his comments they showed during the game. It really is becoming more and more predictable who's going in these games based on how much coverage they give people during an episode. I wasn't surprised he was voted out-he was pretty "crotchety" after his ideas for the shelter were rejected. If he had just smiled and pitched in when the Asian woman whose name I can't spell asked him for advice he likely would still be there.

So shall we predict who will win this season? Should be fun to see how it turns out the end. I have four that I really like right now to win, but I think I'm going to go with Miss Montana (and Miss Earth), Amanda.

One of those odd things that occurred to me... virtually every year, there's at least one episode where the remaining players take part in some sort of ceremony from the local culture. I realized that Jeff has probably had to give the same "this is not a worship ceremony, we respect your beliefs" disclaimer every time, and this is just the first time they've had to show it because it became relevant to the game.

I just finished the first episode.

I agree James is a beast. The christian woman is going to get annoying and I commented to the Mrs. how there will probably be a blow up between her and the gay guy.

Jean-Robert should be fun, he is very colorfull at the tables and I hope he lasts a long time.

I am not surprised Chicken got voted out but it always amazes me how someone like PG plays like that. Has she never even seen an episode of survivor.

I also love the mulleted lunch lady.

mrs saldana is not surprised by this statement at all.

The fact that they introduced him as a gay mormon flight attendant probably also tips this one off, no coincidence that the producers put them in the same group, I'm sure.

none what so ever

Wow, I didn't think the vote would be that one-sided.

interesting though that she chose him as the person to tell about the clue

i was also very surprised that the vote was so lopsided...but what the hell was with the black woman bawling about it when she helped vote her off.

I know it gets said every year, but James has the chance to be the all-time challenge king.

My wife and I joked that, when asked who they were sitting out before the wrestling challenge, that tribe should have said "James! No, just kidding, it's the little girly guy." Just to see the reaction.

Well, there goes that idea.

Someone needs to feed that poor New Yorker Courtney

Courtney might be the worst ever Survivor contestant. I can't believe they didn't vote her out after that performance in the immunity competition

The guys for some reason wanted to keep her around as a "snuggle" partner (my own personal opinion)... If she was smart she would try to start a showmance with Jean-Robert... of course stricly for strategic purposes.

thing is, there's nothing to snuggle with!!!! More chances of getting bruised by bumping into some bones or something...

FM

I can't believe that after all the whining the four girls didn't turn to the guys and go "we're voting Jean-Robert out. You're either with us or against us". Sigh.

Woot!

Courtney's challenge performance reminded me of Mr. Burns -- "I'm giving you the thrashing of your life!"

It was truly pathetic. Watch, she probably wins the million.

Oh, how quickly we forget Guatemala Jamie and Thailand Ghandia....

Anyway, what can I say? I like Courtney. She's a colossal pain in the ass but I'd get along with her.

She (Courtney) is worthless around camp and in challenges... She would be my first target because she does NOTHING for you whatsoever. Well atleast she doesn't eat much of the rice.... hmm maybe she does have some reason to stay then... :P

To be fair, every challenge has been VERY physical. We'll see how she does when a more puzzle-oriented challenge comes along.

She should be good in the inevitable balance-based challenge.

Unless there's a slight breeze, in which case she'll wind up in a tree.

What annoyed me is the skinny rail, we'll call her Courtney, after the immunity challenge she held her hands straight and out in front of her like she displaying her wounds. She is worthless in every meaning of the word but to keep her around was probably the wise thing to do. Also did anyone see the bandaids on her fingers? I thought these people were supposed to be "roughing it".

I think she'll do best in the "crush everything into a powder, cut it into a line and snort it" challenge.

Also, I went to college with Erik and yes, pretty much every guy looks like him.

Firstoff- Jaime is a total hottie and pretty smart player (pardon the pun).
Also, what happened to selecting former amateur triathletes and grandmas that ran the Kilamanjaro Marathon as contestants? The standards for selecting people to participate has dropped off quite a bit don't ya think? In factv I think that is an understatement this season. Outside of James and maybe Amanda or Aaron who in this group is in shape even remotely? Christ we had a 77 year old ex-navy seal on few seasons ago, that would've killed all 16 of the contestants, well...... except for James, while they slept.

What was up with the 'Previously on Survivor'? Sharea(sp?) led that team to victory twice? :confused:

Another episode, another James The Barbarian sighting.

I dunno

I think voting Dave out was stupid on so many levels. For one he helped more then everyone else combined at camp. He also spent time at the other camp which means he had information.

I thought Sherea was a worthless piece of crap and that camp is really gonna suffer.

Obviously the Sherea stuff in the promo was to set up the storyline of the episode (i.e. whether it was OK to slack off at camp if it let you do better at challenges). I guess they didn't have much else to work with this time, so they dressed it up a bit for us.

Its tough to tell sometimes what is actually going on as it depends on what their producers actually choose to show us. They basically made Dave out to be over the top annoying and made Sherea out to be the laziest person in the world. I have a hard time believing that Sherea would have said that she was helping out more around camp if she had actually just done what the cameras showed us (Not getting up once and sleeping the entire time).. so I have to guess there was at least some effort involved behind the scenes.. otherwise who was she lying to try to deceive?

The vote basically just told me that everyone there found Dave so annoying and figured no matter if they voted off Sherea or not, he would just start on someone else. I have to guess that Sherea is next out for that tribe, as the other four seem to be much closer right now. I'm also not sure what good saving yourself for the challenges does when you keep losing them all. :)

obviously, they spent a ton of time on the CGI for the immunity challenge...the anime of the bolo flying through the air was the worst thing i have eve seen.

I agree with her.

+1

that has to be the stupidest mechanic that Survivor has ever used....i am genuinely angry with the show right now, and am contemplating not watching the rest of the season.

Yep. Screw the successful tribe, screw the strong players, reward failure. Thereby encouraging people to try to fail. Ridiculous. Who thought this up?

The girls were just playing the system, so more power to em, though they might have avoided laughing DURING the challenge.

Agreed. If they were going to switch tribes like that, they should have given the four players who switched tribes individual immunity at tribal council for a round. The player who got voted out tonight got screwed.

Two things - shame on you for not noticing ;)

(1) Throwing the immunity challenge has NEVER worked. Never as in never ever. Tribes talk about it every year, some are foolish enough to try, and it backfires every single time.

(2) Don't you think the producers know what's going on? They've been one step ahead of the contestants every single season. Assumptions NEVER work out in this game, and you could tell by Jeff's reaction at T.C. that he knows this is gonna sink that tribe tonight.

True, kind of. I mean, Ozzy did throw a challenge in his season and eventually came within one vote of winning the game -- although I don't recall the challenge throw having anything to do with that. It certainly didn't hurt him, though.

Nevertheless, it's true, this usually doesn't work. And it may not work here. However, on paper, it is the correct strategic play for those girls. I don't like the producers arranging the game so that the correct strategic play for many of the players is to try to lose. Essentially, we just spent the first four weeks of the season watching a few strong players win their way into oblivion.

that is exactly what i said to my wife...it would have been great if they didnt tell them about it until after the challenge too...instead we got the crap they shovelled tonight.

i am not faulting the girls...they made a solid play...i just dont like the fact that it was set up to be a good idea.

The logic in me says this is right. The emotional side of my brain says screw those three. If James had been voted out tonight, I would've seriously stopped watching. Since he isn't...

Anyhow, I think at that point the producers had to have known they made a mistake. I think next week James will go back to his tribe and Frosti and Juggs will go back to theirs.

Blondie seriously aggravated me tonight. From her giggling during the challenge to her attitude afterwards. I can't wait to see them get pwned when they merge. She was acting like she was in control of the game. She was in control of the game for that tribal council, but things can change radically...like they did this episode.

Of course, there's no chance that the producers actually change the rules midstream to punish those types of moves and make it more dramatic. I mean, they always set the rules in advance and stick to them, they wouldn't pull twists and specific challenges out of the air just to make it more interesting.

Here's what I found interesting tonight. There was an obvious subplot with Eric, since he was out of the loop on throwing the challenge, had to bust his ass in the first part for no reason, and is a competitive male just like James and Aaron. You had to think there was at least a strong chance that he'd flip and side with the guys just on principle. Yet they never mentioned it at all, and they didn't even show Jeff asking him about it and tribal.

There's only one conclusion you can draw from that: Eric is one of the most boring players they've ever had, and the producers found that drawing an interesting subplot out of him was like getting blood from a stone and just gave up. That's really saying something -- these producers made Sherea look like she was kicking ass in challenges, but they couldn't wring one ounce of drama out of Eric. Wow.

I thought that it was pretty much a given that Erik wasn't going to go against his new girlfriend. Without that aspect, he would have been a fascinating swing vote. With it, there was not much drama there.

I didn't see the beginning when they switched the players up so I don;t know what was said. I was hoping that once the immunity challenge was over that Jeff was going to say that the players were now going to return to their tribe for tribal.

What was stupid of the girls was to make it so damn obvious and then brag about it. You know James is going to get that information to the other tribe at the next challenge and if there is no merge it will be the worst challenge ever with both sides trying to lose.

Justice would be a merger next and those two girls will be the next two to get voted out.

I thought it was a good play on the girls part, a risk worth taking. I think the other team would have gotten rid of Frosti or Shirea had they lost the immunity challenge. On the other hand, I thought this was a horrible idea by the producers. It really screwed Aaron and James (and would have screwed Frosti and Shirea), giving them no chance really which isn't fair.

Now it will be interesting to see if there's no merge if they throw the next challenge to get rid of James. He isn't going to be pleasant to live with otherwise and for good reason. Wouldn't surprise me if there is a merge though since they have to know James is going to be an audience favorite.

This is exactly what I was saying last night. I didn't like it at all.

Aaron and James had a chance to figure out what was going to happen and stop it. They should have really emphasized to their new tribe how unpopular Jean-Robert was and how he would definitely be voted out at the first opportunity. Who cares if it was true or not, they needed to convince the others that Frosti and Sherea were safe.

They even showed what seemed like an out-of-place scene where Aaron was asked if Jean-Robert would be first one out at the merge, and he sort of hemmed and hawed and didn't give a real answer. Game, set, match, right there.