I'll be interested to see if they try to cater challenges to Russell's strengths (though I'm not really sure what they are, as far as challenges go...he's not real athletic, but pretty tough, and IIRC he doesn't seem to be great at puzzles).

Oh come on, they won't be doing that. I'd imagine the duels are pre-determined.

Also, Probst said that all the duels are mini versions of previous Survivor challenges, so obviously Russell is going to have an advantage.

Historically this always backfires. I was going to say you'd think people would learn, but recruits are rarely fans of the game.

Exactly. It was just a case of newbies thinking that they had information that no one else had and thinking they had to use it in someway.

I don't think it will with the alliance being set up the way it is. If Russell had a strong player in his alliance then I can see them voting that guy out so he could beat Russell, but he didn't. I highly doubt they'd risk sending in one of the stronger guys within their alliance to peg him off. Obviously too much of a risk.

I do wonder if we'll see something like that this later in the game though. Such as if there is a power shift and Rob gets voted out and they take out Grant next so Rob has a tough match up at RI.

It reminded me of a tamed down version of MTV's Gauntlet thing.

I think it's a bad move this early but that doesn't mean it's a game changer at all.

It didnt backfire for Ethan who won his season and Ozzy who finished runnerup when he did it in Cook Islands..

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this so far in the season threads, but...

Presumably, Russell has won some money over the past 2 seasons, yes? Probably more than $50?


then why in the hell does he have a shitty, $50 tattoo on his arm????? good god, with the tattoo artist talent that is out there nowadays, he gets something that HORRID?

Russell is a millionaire before he went on Survivor so it's not a money issue.

I think that would be pretty moronic. No one knows when that person reenters the game. Even if its as soon as the merge it would mean he has to beat anywhere from 6-8 people in a row. For any player that would be an almost impossible task let alone for someone of his physique.

the money thing was rhetorical. of course he has enough money for a good tattoo. But his looks like a friend did it in the backseat of a moving Yugo.

Maybe it's just me - I'm big into tattoos and can't for the life of me understand when people have HORRIBLY done tattoos a la http://www.ugliesttattoos.com

Besides, they'd get more satisfaction at making Russel his "friends" to stay alive in the game.

On top of that, the challenges could be physical, mental, endurance, memory, etc. Very rarely do you get a player who can do well in all different types of challenges.

His medicine usually consisted of "sabotage" that had little to no effect on the outcome of the game. I don't see much of a difference.

People vote off strong people all the time too early. You've watched other seasons before, no? At least this way it wouldn't be a complete loss.

We've got a thread in otter on ugly tattoos you may enjoy

What empty pillars? The show is 16:9.

Finally got a chance to watch last night. I think they really blew the Redemption Island idea.

Here's what I think they should have done:

Each person gets voted off and goes to RI. We as viewers, and they as players, do not get to see the challenge or who wins. The shows are exactly like all the other seasons, but we know the person getting voted off is going to RI.

Then at the merge (or whenever the new person enters), we have Jeff saying "and now entering back into the game ...." then cut to the players all gasping in who they see, but we still don't know who it is yet.

They have a special episode of all the challenges on RI. We, as viewers, get to see who got off the island and how.

then the next episode starts with them reacting to whomever comes back into the game.

I think thats a much better way of handling it. It solves a lot of issues like the flow of the episodes isn't very good now. We don't get much of the "at camp" footage that we're used to. Everything seems sped up. And with my way, CBS gets an extra episode out of it that isn't some recap filler crap. Its a win-win.

Yes, but at least in my viewing area, the end credits (of Survivor and many other shows) are 4:3.
I don't know why.

I like it.

This is an excellent idea. Jeff Probst specifically said on his blog a couple weeks ago that they were looking for viewer feedback concerning the implementation of Redemption Island. You ought to go to jeffprobst.com and repost this there. Who knows, maybe someone who makes decisions will see it.

Yeah, I guess so. I'd forgotten those specific incidents (haven't watched Africa since original broadcast even though I got the DVDs) so kudos to your memory.

Ok, i went to his site and only say "Ask Jeff a question", so i threw it in there. Haven't received any confirmation that it was sent, but oh well. That'd be pretty funny if they used it.

Redemption Island is a huge fail. Tribe members should have been kept in the dark about who comes back into the game.