I thought it was crap that they brought back the outcast tribe...this in no way was a fair challenge as far as physically....these people have been sleeping in a nice cozy bed....having no problems with food and havent had to endure challenges....this smells awful to me....if they wanted to bring them back to maybe vote a member off that would have be fine....thus creating a member advantage for either the morgan or drake tribes...but to bring them back in the game after they were fairly voted out by tribemates stinks.

That would have been great...if the Outcast tribe was able to determine who goes from both tribal councils (instead of the Drake/Morgan tribe members)... Revenge baby....

When did Survivor ever promise to be fair?

An interesting dynamic that the Outcast tribe will have is that they will vote for 2 people who they think are most worthy of continuing. Quite often people are voted out because they are too strong. This time they may vote in the strongest.

Was anything definitively said on the episode about the 3rd tribe staying on for the game past the next episode? I'd guess this is a one time opportunity and it will get back to 2 teams after next week. Otherwise, there would be no net loss of survivors if they just kept replacing people who were voted out with the outcasts. They could have used this twist when Hunter got voted out early in Survivor 4.

A possibility:

Two members of "Outcast Tribe" get voted back in (how I don't know) and then we immediately see the merger. At least this is how I think it would be cool. That way, there are ten in the last tribe, all competing for individual immunity, giving the outcasts a week to make some sort of favorable impression, or win personal immunity.

I think that only two of the outcasts are going to get back in, else we'll still be watching this season in January.

It should be an interesting fight among the outcast to see who gets back in...seriously, on what basis can any one of them try to get someone else to vote for them instead of themselves? What incentive is there for someone like "skinny" Ryan to throw his vote to Burton or Lil? Maybe some sort of monetary incentive to the whole outcast tribe if one of the people they put in goes all the way?

From a purely visual point of view, it might be nice to see Nicole on the island(s) for a couple of weeks before she does something stupid and gets voted off again.

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I was hoping Shawn would kick Jons a#@ last night. Jon is such a idiot, can't even stand the way he looks.

No they didn't, if you listened, he said they were still living in harsh conditions and had access to the same limited food that the tribes did. I'm hoping they'll show more the next episode, but supposedly they lived in a 3rd area on the island outside...there was no hotel and food after this boot off.

But wouldn't it have been funny if the booted off Osten the FIRST time he asked to be voted out, and he gave his little speech, thinking he's off to some resort, and they march him right back into the wilderness

FS

Yeah but were they required to exert themselves by building a new camp, finding food and water, competing in physical challenges, etc. It really is no surprise that they won this challenge. The deck was certainly stacked in their favor.

The producers can manipulate the game anyway they want. Perhaps we should be calling the non-outcasts foolish for assuming that the game would be played the same way as in the past.

I would've believed that, but none of them had any BUGBITES! Plus, none of the early losers looked skinnier than when they were voted off. If they were living in the same conditions as their former tribes, does that mean that each of them had to go back to the town and bargain for their necessary items like in the first episode? That's where Morgan killed themselves. I see absolutely NO WAY for the Outcast tribe to be fair to the people that voted them out already. Like someone else already said, they were outwitted, outlasted, and outplayed.

I've always believed that Survivor was fake/scripted/fixed, whatever you want to call it, but this just confirms my belief.

With all of that being said... you're right, it would've been only fitting for Osten to have to live like the rest of the people in his tribe after he quit. I hope they make him live like a castaway on his own island now.

Just because the producers put twists in and keep the players in the dark DOES NOT MEAN IT IS FIXED!!!

The truth is out there.

if I really thought Survivor was fixed, I wouldn't waste my time watching it. You know, there's a Kennedy conspiracy thread around here somewhere

Well Osten (read Wuss) is gone. I loved the throw down of the torch and the speech about how many people would LOVE to be on the show. I guess Osten filled the Affirmative Action requirement, because he definately ISN'T a survivor.

I think there will be a vote off next week by one of the tribes and the following week the merge will happen which will keep the two Outcasts in the game since neither can be voted off next week.

How did the outcasts have access to all those strips of purple cloth they used to build their pole? The two other tribes only had string available.

The outcasts also had a 6th person who could be used to dig holes, untie ropes, build the stick, etc. I don't think it was fixed, but I think it was really stacked in favor of the outcasts.

they were wearing the cloth. it was their bandanas and stuff. the other tribes have had them for a while. It was indeed stacked to favor them. that is a given.

It's already been established that two outcasts will be coming back-- one will replace each of the Survivors that were ejected at the tribal councils.

Jeff explained that if the Outcasts beat a tribe, they would get to vote one member in to replace that person, and if they beat both tribes then they would get to replace the ejected member on both tribes.

I am interested in seeing how they determine who gets voted in. I am assuming they won't be able to vote for themself, but you have to wonder what the motivation would be to vote for someone else in that scenario.

I surprised no one used their FLAG to grab the keys. I guess they were told not to.

I think there's one thing we seem to be forgetting, Drake was leading this challenge up until the very end when their stick fell apart. Had their stick not broken, Drake would have easily beaten the Outcast tribe. Morgan was getting creamed, of course, but how much of a surprise is that?

Rupert....a word of advice, calm down, stop trying to run EVERYTHING..

Do we have any more info on this?

EW ARTICLE RE: THIS WEEK'S SURVIVOR...GREAT STUFF!

Another episode, another shocking twist. Which outcast will be voted back on? Hopefully, for all our sakes, it won't be Osten, says Josh Wolk, who was finally -- after weeks of begging -- allowed to quit.

In ''Big Brother 3,'' when the evictees were kept on ice until they came back to compete to get back into the house, the producers sent them all to beach resorts. But on ''Survivor,'' Mark Burnett continued to starve the ousted ones so their competition to get back in the game would be fair. No wonder they were all fired up to compete: While banished, they'd been eating just as little as the contestants, but weren't getting filmed for their troubles. You can take a reality-TV contestant's food, but if you really want to hurt him or her, take away their camera time.

Some might complain that letting cast-out players back into a game messes with ''Survivor'''s integrity. To that theory I must paraphrase Jon's memorable words to Shawn: ''SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!'' Burnett is amazing at introducing enough twists to keep his concept interesting. Compare it to ''Joe Millionaire'': The brain trust behind that show thought and thought about how to eke out another year, and the best they could come up with was casting patronizing European women and a really, really dumb guy.

So without knowing who is subbing in, where does this leave the tribes? Over at Drake, Rupert is getting cockier by the minute. It is inconceivable to him that anyone should vote him out: he ranted at Jon, asking him how he could ding Rupert when he had gotten them all the food. He seemed like a troll's Jewish mother. And when he made Jon and Shawn argue for their lives in front of him, Sandra, and Christa, he was getting dangerously hubristic. Anyone remember what happened to John, Zoe, Tammy, and the General when they thought they had control of the game in Marquesas? Well, it ended with John in tears: I don't want to see Rupert get all snuffly, mostly because it will take forever to get snot out of that beard.

But he's still in control, for now, as Shawn is out. There must be miles of footage on the cutting-room floor of him being a complete ass: That's the only way I can understand someone wanting him out over the hateful Jon. ''Survivor'' thrives on casting a Guy You Love to Hate, but the weasley, arrogant Jon is just a Guy You Love to See Get Kicked in the Groin. And until someone does so, there's nothing to Love.

Over at Morgan, Andrew is also getting dangerously authoritarian. When his tribe lost the challenge, he was apoplectic over the idea of one of the ''misfits'' coming back into the game, and demanded a pledge from his teammates that the returnee would be voted back out immediately. Andrew is turning into the Colonel Kurtz of Morgan. If he shaves his head bald next week, I advise the rest of Morgan to back away slowly.

But Andrew didn't need to worry about his delusions of power backfiring, since Osten volunteered to go. He said his body was a temple, and I guess he was packing up his Torah and going home. In this game, Osten has been a more pointless muscleman than Arnold Schwarzenegger at a NOW rally. And has anyone else noticed that the more tired he's gotten, the more his Boston accent has come back? ''If I can't give a hundred and one pah-cent, fahget it.'' He claimed that he hit a wall, which implies that there was a time before when he was actually effective. Hmm... wonder exactly what percent he was giving when he almost drowned?

His surrendering seemed to infuriate Jeff Probst. Robbed of the suspense of tribal council, all Probst could do was browbeat Osten, determined to make him admit that he was a failure and a quitter. But Osten was far more dedicated to bailing out without apology than he ever was to playing the game. So Probst made his way around the rest of the tribe, making them all say Osten was a wuss. It was like the Bizarro world version of ''An Officer and a Gentleman,'' with Lou Gossett Jr. wanting Richard Gere to stay. I was waiting for Osten to start wailing, ''I've got too many other places to go!''

Finally, Probst let Osten leave, and was visibly disgusted. I expected him to say, ''Get off my island,'' and boot Osten in the pants as he left. He wasn't even allowed to say his final words over the closing credits. I wouldn't be surprised if Probst told him to find his own way home, and Osten is still living on that island.

So who will the outcasts vote back into the game next week? People won't be able to vote for themselves, since they all would. And there's not much incentive to rally behind other people, since there's no splitting the winnings, and there's not much pride in losing a vote twice in this series. Well, at least Morgan might get a stronger player than Osten to replace him: in other words, Lil it is.

(Posted:10/31/03)

haha! Great article, though it does cover exactly what has been said here already. My favorite part of the last episode was Probst getting pissed with Osten. Probst is definitely edgier this season!

Neither was Shawn.

I figured it was only because there were two Survivors leaving this week, so you couldn't have fit both fonal words over the credits.

Shawn said his closing words after Drake's tribal council.

Great article Vegas. Thanks.

As Hotaru mentioned, Shawn did have some closing words as Osten did not. See the official site
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivo.../s7story.shtml

Shawn has his final words as is normal. No link for Osten.