Some thoughts on the show.

1. I am not tired of it. :)

2. The beginning was lame IMO. Cheezy to have the mock attacks. I can appreciate the culture references, but let's get on with the show.

3. Men vs Women. I don't like it and am surprised they went back to it. It forces all the challenges to have certain elements (like balance). But the bigger thing is that it removes certain team dynamics and changes strategy. If these were two mixed gender teams, I do not think the men would have voted off the strong member Brook. But I expect MOST of the men think they don't need him, because if the challenges were based on strength, they already won them. If they are not that physical, then it did not matter.

4. Amazed that some players seem like they have never seen previous series. Do not get all bossy. Make alliances. Do your share of work.

5. It was noted that this series seem to have intentionally tried to get a "hotter" looking bunch. Really not many of the men were older, fatter, etc. And a lot of the women were not bad either. Not much in terms of diversity either.

6. Chris. I felt sorry for him on the balance beam. But wondered why he did not go back to crawling. It worked ALMOST for him the first time. It worked for everyone else. But he got locked into walking across, which was a LOT less successful. Then he takes off his shoes which makes it harder on a thin beam. And keeps trying. Anyway... I felt more sorry for him until he talked. He is an idiot and is clueless and not long for this island.

7. Is it just me or are there a lot of dumber or inarticulate people in this series? The guy who can't swim was sad. The military guy, to me the jury is out. He may be smarter than he sounds.

8. The old lady seems to be a real liability in challenges.

9. One of the first women across looked like she really hurt herself on the beam with a nasty looking red scrape on her chest.

10. Brook being voted off was a shock. I had to rewatch it. Of course you only see what the editors show you. My take is that Chris had an alliance that included the military guy, which is why he was noncommital about voting off Chris when asked. The four younger guys were also splintered when the one, who did not say anything when they were discussing Chris, decided to vote for Rory. Odd in that I wonder if he has no alliance. In the rewatching, I did pick up hints of Brook coming across as cocky and too bossy.

I think he took the shoes off because they were full of slippery mud

Ratings would suck for a show that was 98% subtitles

I don't want this to turn into a racist thing, but Survivor hasn't had great luck casting black men.

Survivor Borneo - Gervase. Great guy but came across as very lazy.
Survivor Outback - Nick. I don't recall much about Nick to be honest.
Survivor Africa - Clarence. Wasn't he the one who stole the beans?
Survivor Marquesas - Sean. Don't recall much about Sean
Survivor Tialand - Ted. Don't know if he's guilty or innocent, but there was the Ghandia scandle
Survivor Amazon - No black men
Survivor Pearl Islands - Osten. Need I say more?
Survivor All Stars - No black men
Survivor Vanuatu - Rory. Too early to tell, but I thought I heard a comment or two last night about him not pulling his weight. But I may have heard wrong or be remembering wrong. After one episode, things aren't looking good for him.

Not a stand out player among them. Gervase made it pretty far, but as I recall, he was fairly lazy. Just once I'd like to see them cast a stong, black male. Which is probably what they thought they were doing with Osten. :D On the other hand, since they only cast, at most, one black man per season, I think the odds are against them.

One of the first things I noticed was the lack of diversity. All white except for Rory, right?

Once the Robfather was gone Sean really became a valuable member of his tribe. (Those two were bad for eachother.) There were some stress points and he kind of blew up at his last TC but overall he was an excellent castmember.

Gervace was a bit lazy but a great castmember.

Ted was a hard worker and loyal alliance member who got kind of screwed by the evil genius Brian in the final TC.

Nick was fine, if a touch lazy. He was a real under-the-radar player.

Osten was an unbelievable loser.

That's as diverse a group of players as any other that you might come up with in Survivor. No pattern at all.

I saw a preview for this season on the TVGuide channel, and one of the men (can't remember which) did mention that he'd never seen the show before.

Oh sure. And then have nothing but swimming competitions... :mad:

Seriously, what is the argument about blacks and swimming? I know for a fact that the North Miami Police Department has eliminated the swimming requirements for prospective employees in order to attract more black applicants. For real.

I've heard some say that blacks have more muscle mass than whites and thus are not as naturally buoyant as tubby whities. I've heard one black preacher on the radio say that, for the same reason, blacks don't make for good astronauts because, due to their being more heavily muscled, they tend to burn up on re-entry.

Still... I'd tap the sheep-farmer. And Julie Chen.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

ok.. what was the big surprise at the beginning of the show?

lots of hotties, but besides the one legger teacher, I don't feel like rooting for the men, but I still will root for them while starring at the chickas. I personally think Eliza is the hottest, but most of the others arent bad...

The natives killed a pig off-camera.

How to these people get by for 3 days without water?

How come nobody can start a fire? Didn't anyone practice or watch the show ahead of time?

I've never heard of this. Most public (or private schools for that matter) where I live (predominantly black population) do not offer swimming and there aren't many pools around here to begin with. Not many Y's either. So there are many of my peers who can't swim.

absolutely! If I were cast on Survivor, I'd spend 8 hours a day perfecting fire making techniques before going on the show. Duh.

I was wondering why the guys just gave up after getting an "amber" (ember). I would have tried again until I was able to get a fire from it.

I love my TiVo. The best part about it is it helps the family not watch as much TV as they normally would. Also, no more missing out on Survivor specials because you didn't hear about them. Simply program your faithrul TiVo to pick up anything Survivor related and you're set! :thumbsup:

rotfl

I know they edit this to emphasize certain things, but geez, will the young and the old always segregate from each other? We always see the "younger, prettier" girls apart from the rest, and the "younger, stronger" guys are always a target, at least from what we've seen so far of the guy/girl split survivors. Don't you think it would behoove them to cross the lines a little bit? And did that one girl really complain that the older woman was working too hard, making the rest of them look bad? Geez.

Chris pretty much lambasted Rory in tribal council, and Rory still votes to keep him? Does this Chris guy know when to shut up? And what about that one guy that voted apart from everyone else... was he just clueless?

4 pages and someone finally mentions what an idiot John P was! Not only did he say, "we got a hot amber." He also said, "If the Aborigians can do it, why can't we?" This guy takes the crown!

In the meantime some people are calling Chris and Twila idiots because he didn't know how to negotiate the balance beam and Twila read complete instead of compete :rolleyes: Big deal. Chris was smart enough to peg John P as an idiot and manage to not get voted off despite screwing up royally.

Nicely referenced. I tip my hat to you. :)

I heard Probst on the radio the other day and he said that the Vanuatu tribe divided them into men and women and that it was decided to keep them that way in case there were any alliances formed while they were separated.

I'll keep watching, but so far I'm not really impressed by anybody. The only person I'm even remotely rooting for is Dolly, just because the irony of a sheep farmer named Dolly is too good. :)

Comments:

1) When the island tribe was seperating the men from the women, I expected someone to say "They're stealing our women!"

2) During the "ritual," I wish Probst would've told them it was time for their ritual circumcision.

3) Also tired of the men vs women crap. Is it really that interesting to see the young women and older women being catty against each other?

4) Is it just me or does Eliza look a lot like Eliza Dushku?

Eliza looks like Jamie-Lynn DiScala (Meadow on The Sopranos), but with much larger boobs.

I think I'd have fire on the first day or be taking my chances with the non-boiled water.

What's up with these peole who hae no water, yet have time to bathe, etc (even though they are clearly not dirty).

If I were to join the cast, I would learn to make fire every imaginable way and take some crash course survivor lessons. I would only eat rice for about 2-3 weeks then bulk up on fatty reserve foods right before I left. And why does no one wear any all weather type gear? I never see anyone with athletic shoes that are made to get wet or any type of dry-gear clothing.