Not sure how many people here are watching Australian Survivor, but a player
used an Advantage this week that I don't believe I had seen before in the
60+ English language seasons of the show I have seen. Spoilers ahead for
this week's Australian Survivor episodes.

Spoilers ahead...

A player named Ray bought a jar of popcorn in the Auction (post-merge), and
hidden inside was an advantage that basically said if he could convince the
other eight players to vote against him at TC, their votes would all be
nullified and his one vote would decide who goes home. In that sense it
was no different from playing an Idol and all votes against you are
nullified. But the catch here was that ALL votes had to be against him. If
any one of the other eight players wrote a different name down, then all
votes would count, and if most of the votes were against him, he would go
home. I'm pretty sure I've never seen this advantage before.

My first impression was that this was an incredibly risky thing to play
since how can you ever assure everyone will vote for you. Even if you
suddenly make yourself very unlikeable or act like a jerk and throw out the
rice, etc., there's still no guarantee you will get every vote. And in
this case, Ray was a likeable player who probably wouldn't have it in him to
act against character like that without raising suspicion. And he wasn't a
really big or strategic player that anyone was looking to get rid of anyway,
so this seemed like a pretty difficult task.

So the strategy he took was to pretend he was depressed and didn't want to
play any more. He literally stopped eating and drinking and took to lying
by himself on the beach, sometimes face down. In the challenges, he
basically just went through the motions and didn't exert himself. He did
bring two players from his alliance into what he was doing, so they helped
spread the word that he wanted to be voted out. As a precedent, another
player had gone through an actual mental health episode crisis just a few
episodes before and had asked the other players to vote him out of the game
at TC, which they did, so Ray just pretty much did the same and asked
everyone to vote him out at TC.

And it worked. People were genuinely concerned about him and they
unanimously voted for him, which of course gave him the ability to vote
another person out of the game instead. The way it played out was that
after sitting morosely as votes were cast and the host came back and said
the usual "If anyone has an advantage or idol they wish to play..." he
suddenly comes to life, jumps up and walks over to the host, telling
everyone with an almost Jonny Fairplay-looking smile "You guys are gonna
hate me for this..." and then plays the advantage.

Ironically, the person he voted out - a woman named Valeria - was a
strategic player who had tried to convince her alliance that they should try
to keep this player in the game for one more cycle and use this opportunity
to blindside one of the stronger players. But they all told her it would be
morally wrong to force him to stay in the game and she went along with
everyone in voting the guy out.

We won't know until Sunday's episode how this move will be received, but I
think this may backfire on Ray big time. Weaponizing mental health like
this and manipulating people's genuine concern for him is not likely to win
him any votes if he somehow gets carried to final three, and I think it
could cause him to get voted out before then. Guess we shall see. We'll
also see if the show ever uses this advantage again or if the US season
picks it up. I somehow don't think they will.

On Sat, 9 Mar 2024 14:39:57 -0500, "Rick" <rick@nospam.com> wrote:

>Not sure how many people here are watching Australian Survivor, but a player
>used an Advantage this week that I don't believe I had seen before in the
>60+ English language seasons of the show I have seen. Spoilers ahead for
>this week's Australian Survivor episodes.
>
>Spoilers ahead...
>
>A player named Ray bought a jar of popcorn in the Auction (post-merge), and
>hidden inside was an advantage that basically said if he could convince the
>other eight players to vote against him at TC, their votes would all be
>nullified and his one vote would decide who goes home. In that sense it
>was no different from playing an Idol and all votes against you are
>nullified. But the catch here was that ALL votes had to be against him. If
>any one of the other eight players wrote a different name down, then all
>votes would count, and if most of the votes were against him, he would go
>home. I'm pretty sure I've never seen this advantage before.
>
>My first impression was that this was an incredibly risky thing to play
>since how can you ever assure everyone will vote for you. Even if you
>suddenly make yourself very unlikeable or act like a jerk and throw out the
>rice, etc., there's still no guarantee you will get every vote. And in
>this case, Ray was a likeable player who probably wouldn't have it in him to
>act against character like that without raising suspicion. And he wasn't a
>really big or strategic player that anyone was looking to get rid of anyway,
>so this seemed like a pretty difficult task.
>
>So the strategy he took was to pretend he was depressed and didn't want to
>play any more. He literally stopped eating and drinking and took to lying
>by himself on the beach, sometimes face down. In the challenges, he
>basically just went through the motions and didn't exert himself. He did
>bring two players from his alliance into what he was doing, so they helped
>spread the word that he wanted to be voted out. As a precedent, another
>player had gone through an actual mental health episode crisis just a few
>episodes before and had asked the other players to vote him out of the game
>at TC, which they did, so Ray just pretty much did the same and asked
>everyone to vote him out at TC.
>
>And it worked. People were genuinely concerned about him and they
>unanimously voted for him, which of course gave him the ability to vote
>another person out of the game instead. The way it played out was that
>after sitting morosely as votes were cast and the host came back and said
>the usual "If anyone has an advantage or idol they wish to play..." he
>suddenly comes to life, jumps up and walks over to the host, telling
>everyone with an almost Jonny Fairplay-looking smile "You guys are gonna
>hate me for this..." and then plays the advantage.
>
>Ironically, the person he voted out - a woman named Valeria - was a
>strategic player who had tried to convince her alliance that they should try
>to keep this player in the game for one more cycle and use this opportunity
>to blindside one of the stronger players. But they all told her it would be
>morally wrong to force him to stay in the game and she went along with
>everyone in voting the guy out.
>
>We won't know until Sunday's episode how this move will be received, but I
>think this may backfire on Ray big time. Weaponizing mental health like
>this and manipulating people's genuine concern for him is not likely to win
>him any votes if he somehow gets carried to final three, and I think it
>could cause him to get voted out before then. Guess we shall see. We'll
>also see if the show ever uses this advantage again or if the US season
>picks it up. I somehow don't think they will.

That sounds like an interesting twist that I would like to have seen.
The problem is it seems like a twist they can only use once. Future
players in Oz and the US who know about this twist will be looking for
it. So it seems unlikely we will ever see the US Survivor use the
twist.

On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 01:28:55 -0400, shawn
<nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:

>That sounds like an interesting twist that I would like to have seen.
>The problem is it seems like a twist they can only use once. Future
>players in Oz and the US who know about this twist will be looking for
>it. So it seems unlikely we will ever see the US Survivor use the
>twist.

One they used on South African Survivor I liked was kind of like the
F4 fire challenge where the loser went to fire-making but in this one
it was pure strategy was basically pole-standing at F4 where it was
all endurance but the first to drop automatically went out while the
winner chose who to take to final 2 (e.g. the standard format when
it's a F2 vote). What made this one so dramatic was that there was a
tall black guy who was a physical challenge beast who during a rain
storm was distracted by an unexpected gust of wind causing him to fall
off and instantly be eliminated despite having built an EXTREMELY
effective physical case for the jury. Several people said at their
finale that they had expected him to win as did I.

Of course that was the 3rd season after the first two seasons that had
had a 23 hour and a 24 1/2 hour pole standing challenge at F3...which
I had rememberred either Probst or Burnett saying was the sort of
challenge they REALLY hated since it was so tough on their camera
crews.

"The Horny Goat" wrote in message
news:1cb7vi1hvbhdei5svm4rtj831foa83us1m@4ax.com...
>
>On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 01:28:55 -0400, shawn
><nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:
>
>>That sounds like an interesting twist that I would like to have seen.
>>The problem is it seems like a twist they can only use once. Future
>>players in Oz and the US who know about this twist will be looking for
>>it. So it seems unlikely we will ever see the US Survivor use the
>>twist.
>
>One they used on South African Survivor I liked was kind of like the
>F4 fire challenge where the loser went to fire-making but in this one
>it was pure strategy was basically pole-standing at F4 where it was
>all endurance but the first to drop automatically went out while the
>winner chose who to take to final 2 (e.g. the standard format when
>it's a F2 vote). What made this one so dramatic was that there was a
>tall black guy who was a physical challenge beast who during a rain
>storm was distracted by an unexpected gust of wind causing him to fall
>off and instantly be eliminated despite having built an EXTREMELY
>effective physical case for the jury. Several people said at their
>finale that they had expected him to win as did I.
>
>Of course that was the 3rd season after the first two seasons that had
>had a 23 hour and a 24 1/2 hour pole standing challenge at F3...which
>I had rememberred either Probst or Burnett saying was the sort of
>challenge they REALLY hated since it was so tough on their camera
>crews.

I think when Jeff says it's hard on the camera crew to film a 23 hour
challenge, what he really means is it is hard on Jeff. Camera crews can be
switched out, but Jeff theoretically has to remain through the entire
challenge. I think the longest endurance challenge in US history was
probably the 12 hours in Palau with Tom and Ian, and I honestly don't recall
if Jeff took any breaks or how he handled that.

I had forgotten the South African challenge with the dominant player who got
eliminated, but that's similar in concept to Terry losing the F3 challenge
in Survivor 12 because it was a floating challenge and Danielle was able to
handle it better. Terry had also been a challenge beast who was probably
the fave to win with the jury that season, but Daniele probably wisely got
rid of him and took Aras to the end, even though she still lost to Aras.
I've heard it said that Terry being eliminated in an F3 challenge that
favored a smaller person is what led to them going to a final three starting
the following season.

--

Rick wrote:

> I think when Jeff says it's hard on the camera crew to film
> a 23 hour challenge, what he really means is it is hard on
> Jeff. Camera crews can be switched out, but Jeff
> theoretically has to remain through the entire challenge.

Oh, my!

Quite a challenging job fate has bestowed upon our
beloved host.

Enjoy.

--
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

"Emanuel Berg" wrote in message news:8734srfd7p.fsf@dataswamp.org...
>
>Rick wrote:
>
>> I think when Jeff says it's hard on the camera crew to film
>> a 23 hour challenge, what he really means is it is hard on
>> Jeff. Camera crews can be switched out, but Jeff
>> theoretically has to remain through the entire challenge.
>
>Oh, my!
>
>Quite a challenging job fate has bestowed upon our
>beloved host.
>
>Enjoy.
>

Yeah but who wouldn't agree to stand around for 12 hours or even 23 hours
watching a couple of people hanging onto a pole if you could make the kind
of money Jeff does. For the $20,000 or so Jeff makes each day, I could do
that.

--

Rick wrote:

>>> I think when Jeff says it's hard on the camera crew to
>>> film a 23 hour challenge, what he really means is it is
>>> hard on Jeff. Camera crews can be switched out, but Jeff
>>> theoretically has to remain through the entire challenge.
>>
>> Oh, my!
>>
>> Quite a challenging job fate has bestowed upon our
>> beloved host.
>>
>> Enjoy.
>
> Yeah but who wouldn't agree to stand around for 12 hours or
> even 23 hours watching a couple of people hanging onto
> a pole if you could make the kind of money Jeff does.
> For the $20,000 or so Jeff makes each day, I could do that.

Maybe he can check in at some spa resort after to restore
his strength.

BTW I haven't seen any 23 or even 12 hour challenges for
a long time. Maybe they stopped doing them out of concern
for Jeff and the camera teams.

--
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 13:08:38 -0400, "Rick" <rick@nospam.com> wrote:

>I had forgotten the South African challenge with the dominant player who got
>eliminated, but that's similar in concept to Terry losing the F3 challenge
>in Survivor 12 because it was a floating challenge and Danielle was able to
>handle it better. Terry had also been a challenge beast who was probably
>the fave to win with the jury that season, but Daniele probably wisely got
>rid of him and took Aras to the end, even though she still lost to Aras.
>I've heard it said that Terry being eliminated in an F3 challenge that
>favored a smaller person is what led to them going to a final three starting
>the following season.
>
>--
So you agree with me that he was probably going to win except for that
single miscue? I don't think in ANY Survivor game I've ever seen
someone dominate like him

On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 03:27:57 +0100, Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org>
wrote:

>BTW I haven't seen any 23 or even 12 hour challenges for
>a long time. Maybe they stopped doing them out of concern
>for Jeff and the camera teams.
>
I'm pretty sure around 13 was the record for Survivor USA. Those 23
1/2 and 24 1/2 were the record for Survivor South Africa. They were
consecutive seasons with the same challenge - either season 1 and 2 or
2 and 3