dino88

This has always been the case. When were there more than 2 idols in play?

chowderhead

well, considering it was all Zapatera that got voted out early and the final 3/4 were on the Ometepe and purposely isolated themselves from the Zaps.. the walk through would have been ... Dave - yeah didn't really know him. Julie. hmm hid Philip's underwear. Steve - not a racist. Ralph. yeah that hairy fella. Matt ... didn't really know him. Mike. Thanks for the family visit.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Fast forward.

dolphinboy

What I meat was, I don't "believe" that Ralph's idol was put back into play after he used it. Russell found them over and over, even after people used them because they kept putting them back.

I do believe Rob found his and Ralph found his and those were going to be the only 2 times the idol was going to be in play for the game.

I have no proof, but if Ralph's went back into play, I think it would have been found and I think hidden clues would have been given out to help people find it or, at least know it was back in play for them to get.

monkyskunk

I always enjoyed the Fallen Comrades tribute as well but from what Jeff Probst commented about it, it doesn't look good for it's return.

dino88

Gotcha. Yeah, I guess they didn't really mention it after Ralph used his idol. It was either out of play or they just left it out of the final edit (like Rob telling the girls about his idol) because no one ended up finding it.

Setzer

I was going to state this in my previous post. That's really his only shot at winning Survivor....to play it with people who've played the game before. I'll even go as far to say it would have to be something similar to Heroes vs. Villains and he's on the Villains side again.

Julie's comments annoyed me the most. I think Natalie and Philip did Rob a big favor last night with the comments they made. They both pretty much gave the jury reasons to not vote for them. I think Rob has a much more difficult time winning had it been Ashley, Andrea or Grant on the jury. Not to say he wouldn't have won but there would have been more votes against him.

Damfino

Wow, you're right! I always referred to this as the walkabout sequence. I didn't miss it and I didn't even notice that it was missing. They might have filmed it though and it didn't make the cut.

RI needs to end at the merge. It would give the returnee the best chance to get back into the game probably by aligning with the tribe that didn't vote him or her out.

Josh-da-man

There were nine people on the villains tribe and Rob wanted to flush out the HII, which he knew Russell had.

The plan was to split the vote 3-3-3 against Russell, Tyson, and Parvati; with Russell and his two girls voting for Tyson, and Rob's loyal six splitting their vote between Russell and Parvati.

Russell talked Tyson into voting for Parvati instead of himself in order to get rid of her because Tyson didn't like her. The "Russell seed," as he calls it. That would have made the vote 4 (Parvati)- 3 (Tyson)- 2 (Russell).

Then, at the tribal council, Russell hand the HII to Parvati, she played it, and Tyson gets the boot.

Ropes Pierre

Russell is like a battered woman who keeps coming back for more.

cdollaz

Most pathetic jury ever. I would rather hang out with Philip than most of those fucking assholes.

dolphinboy

I hope that you are kidding, because they weren't even close to being the worst jury ever.

GuessWho

I wish Jeff had asked people how they felt now knowing that "Murlonio" is a fake Rob-ism and doesn't mean "friendship by the sea" or whatever the hell he BS'd about it.

creekdipper

When Jeff mentioned the reasons for editing out the walkabout, he put his finger on how the show has changed (for the worse, IMHO) when he said the show has 'evolved' and it's now all about the strategy. It used to be that the audience got to know each contestant & learned about their families, their attitudes & beliefs, etc. There was a lot of relationship-building that went beyond mere strategy (I think Ashley & Natalie's bond came closest...although Nat eventually threw Ashley under the bus, which I don't think Ashley would have done). It used to make the blindsides more poignant, too. For instance, a lot of posters think that Grant was whiny & bitter, but we got a few glimpses of Rob & him being bros on the beach & we heard Rob talking about how good a friendship he thought they had (but we didn't really see that develop).

Some other things we miss & would like to see return, even if only occasionally:

(1) The Survivor auction;
(2) Nasty food challenge;
(3) Challenges based upon the setting and/or theme;
(4) Swimming challenges;
(5) Car challenge;
(6) Jeff tempting contestants to drop out with food;
(7) Deals made in the middle of challenges;
(8) Less lounge chairs & more scrounging for food & shelter;
(9) Fire challenge.
(10) Tribal votes that actually mean something with their finality. Imagine how the NCAA BBall tournament would change if a loss meant dropping into a losers' bracket rather than being eliminated.

It's understandable that Survivor would evolve & mix things up to try to keep it fresh, but it would be nice to at least learn all of the contestants' names instead of focusing 90% of the attention on two or three players. When most of the people get voted off these days, it's hard to care since they are just numbers to be eliminated. I think most of the audience just counts who's left to see how it affects the anointed ones' chances of winning.

creekdipper

Got to thinking about how a lot of us have called this bunch one of the dumbest group of contestants & think maybe that's a bit harsh. I think it's fairer to say that Rob's tribe were largely young & inexperienced. Look how Andrea changed after getting voted off. If she had managed to survive the immunity challenges...and she came close...she could have brought up Ralph's comments about being 'used' (ahem) like tissue paper by Rob & how she agreed but only saw that after being blindsided. She could have explained to the Zaps how Rob had used his unmatched opportunities and experience to exploit the weaknesses of the novices & shown how much of an unfair advantage that was for him. She could have reminded Grant & others how Rob had thrown them aside when it suited his purposes.

The point is that maybe the contestants (present & past) are telling the truth when they say that no one understands the level of paranoia, mistrust, etc. that sets in while isolated in an unfamiliar environment until they've been in that position. The point that Jeff & others have repeatedly made about the new players bonding so quickly with people they've just met and then feeling like they've known them for years is pertinent. I'm sure that the young'uns were a lot more vulnerable, gullible, & naive when it came to trusting & being betrayed. It's easy for us to sit back & judge and say, "How could they not see what was going on?" or "How could they not know they were the next target & think they were perfectly safe?" I'm sure the contestants felt the same way about themselves when watching the replay. I'm equally sure that most of them would avoid a lot of the mistakes they made if they had a chance to play again.

That's why I don't plan to watch until they get rid of the "returning player" concept. Besides just being a vehicle to indulge the producers' love for certain players and/or ploy to use a 'proven favorite' to insure ratings, it just gives too much advantage & power to the returnees. The idea that the returning players have "a huge target on their backs" was refuted by Rob's easy run. If Russell had any kind of social skills, he very well might have hung in for quite a while with the Zaps.

Anyway, Rob's tribe should feel a little better after seeing how many others were taken in due to inexperience. Thinking back on past seasons, we've seen this happen frequently to players who trusted too much too soon. I'd say that most of us would have made many of the same errors when we were in our late teens/early twenties.

Especially if we only got to play the game once instead of four times.

cdollaz

I didn't say worst, I said most pathetic. My comment is regarding their comments and questions, not the voting. They got the voting part right, but their comments were the most PATHETIC ever.

taa455

With the redemption island "duel" at the beginning of each episode, it forces the show to only have one challenge for both reward/immunity. I would LOVE for them to drop this RI shit and go back to having separate reward and immunity challenges.

Setzer

I guess the same could be said for Rob going into this season.

Setzer

I miss those things too....but with the addition of Redemption Island there is no time for cool reward challenges anymore. They're trying to cram too much into a 1 hour episode. RI is a joke and a poll should have done on CBS.com to see what fans thought of it before they decided to use it again for next season.

mugwump

They likely had the next season already well under way or in the bag before the negative audience reaction to RI was known. So hopefully next season will be the last of it. It'll also be the first time I've skipped watching Survivor.

Setzer

They may have plans outlined for the next season but they don't start filming until June. They film Survivor seasons between June-September. So, they could have easily done a poll to see what the fan reaction was before moving forward with it.

Josh-da-man

I also remember when they would mix the tribes up early in the game. This season would have been far more interesting had they mixed the Os and Zs up before the merge. Send Rob and Natalie over to Zapatera in exchange for a couple of theirs a few councils before the merge and then see what would have happened.

Goat3001

I hated that. It was the definition of the producers screwing with the game. If one team was ahead by a lot they'd do a tribe swap... if it was close, they never did it. Except for the first few times they did it, I don't know if a tribe swap was ever planned... just something decided on the fly by the producers if it seemed appropriate.

Patman

Didn't something like that happened during Yau-Man's first season when some Asian chick got the short end of a swap and got voted out pretty quickly, while sitting pretty on her original tribe?

Goat3001

I can't remember specifically but I know it's happened a few times. Someone gets lucky and sticks with most of their original tribe and gets in a power position or someone gets shit luck and goes from high up in their tribe to bottom rung.

IIRC, this happened in China (it was the season Todd won, might not have been China). I think his name was Aaron, he was right at the top of his tribe... he looked like an early favorite but the tribe swap got him.

zuffy

This. I hated the tribe swap to "even" the playing field.