The finale is listed as just one episode and is titled "Absolute Banger Season." If Carson survives F4 I say he wins.

--
Brian

On Wed, 24 May 2023 16:41:10 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
<dcg_brian@hotmail.com> wrote:

>The finale is listed as just one episode and is titled "Absolute Banger Season." If Carson survives F4 I say he wins.

If being the operative word.

On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 1:47:52 PM UTC-6, shawn wrote:
> On Wed, 24 May 2023 16:41:10 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
> <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >The finale is listed as just one episode and is titled "Absolute Banger Season." If Carson survives F4 I say he wins.
> If being the operative word.

Those not so subtle shots of Carson and fire throughout the season were a bit of a giveaway that fire would be his demise. I didn't expect it to happen the way it did though.

--
Brian

On Thu, 25 May 2023 13:13:19 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
<dcg_brian@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 1:47:52?PM UTC-6, shawn wrote:
>> On Wed, 24 May 2023 16:41:10 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
>> <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >The finale is listed as just one episode and is titled "Absolute Banger Season." If Carson survives F4 I say he wins.
>> If being the operative word.
>
>Those not so subtle shots of Carson and fire throughout the season were a bit of a giveaway that fire would be his demise. I didn't expect it to happen the way it did though.

Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise since we knew that Carson had
practiced all of the puzzles for months and clearly would have
practiced starting fires. So I would have expected him to be the best
fire builder out of the four. I suppose it could be nerves but he's
done well in previous challenges so nerves shouldn't have been an
issue for him.

On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 3:06:21 PM UTC-6, shawn wrote:
> On Thu, 25 May 2023 13:13:19 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
> <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 1:47:52?PM UTC-6, shawn wrote:
> >> On Wed, 24 May 2023 16:41:10 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
> >> <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >The finale is listed as just one episode and is titled "Absolute Banger Season." If Carson survives F4 I say he wins.
> >> If being the operative word.
> >
> >Those not so subtle shots of Carson and fire throughout the season were a bit of a giveaway that fire would be his demise. I didn't expect it to happen the way it did though.
> Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise since we knew that Carson had
> practiced all of the puzzles for months and clearly would have
> practiced starting fires. So I would have expected him to be the best
> fire builder out of the four. I suppose it could be nerves but he's
> done well in previous challenges so nerves shouldn't have been an
> issue for him.

What really surprised me is that Heidi gave up immunity to do fire in an attempt to build up her resume. I was expecting either her or Lauren to win F4 immunity and then throw Carolyn and Carson against each other in fire since there had been talk about how good she was at fire. I wonder if Heidi had a good idea that Carolyn would not perform well at FTC? I've stated before that I didn't think she would well. Yam Yam impressed me with how confident he was. I was expecting him to be just slightly better than Carolyn. When he started knocking down Heidi's points that Tika was riding coattails, etc. I knew it was going to be a landslide.

As for Carson, I thought he said he did practice at home and had no problems starting fires. I guess the pressure got to him. Probably didn't help that Heidi was so confident. We'll see him again at some point as he seems to be very well liked.I can see him and Frannie being frequent guests on RHAP podcasts.

--
Brian

On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 3:29:40 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:

> What really surprised me is that Heidi gave up immunity to do fire in an attempt to build up her resume. I was expecting either her or Lauren to win F4 immunity and then throw Carolyn and Carson against each other in fire since there had been talk about how good she was at fire. I wonder if Heidi had a good idea that Carolyn would not perform well at FTC? I've stated before that I didn't think she would well. Yam Yam impressed me with how confident he was. I was expecting him to be just slightly better than Carolyn. When he started knocking down Heidi's points that Tika was riding coattails, etc. I knew it was going to be a landslide.

I didn't watch very much of the finale, as I was pretty sure that I knew who the winner was going to be. I felt that if Carson made F3, he would win, and that
if Yammy was sitting with two people other than Carson, he would win. So, once Heidi eliminated Carson, my interest level decreased considerably. Contrary
to what Kane said, it seemed pretty obvious to me that the members of the jury loved Yammy's shtick and had come to FTC having decided to vote for him
unless he made a gigantic blunder of some sort. To his credit, he played to his strengths, joking and vamping it up whenever possible. However, I agree that
his answers and comments were more substantive than I had expected. Oddly enough, he talked a much better game in front of the jury than the one that
the viewers saw him actually play.

My overall impression of S44 is somewhat mixed. There was some good game play after the merge, but too many potentially strong players were eliminated,
or removed from the game, in the early episodes. I suspect that Survivor fans are going to look back at this season as being a poor one with an extremely
weak F3.

On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 5:33:49 PM UTC-6, zeppo wrote:
> On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 3:29:40 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
>
> > What really surprised me is that Heidi gave up immunity to do fire in an attempt to build up her resume. I was expecting either her or Lauren to win F4 immunity and then throw Carolyn and Carson against each other in fire since there had been talk about how good she was at fire. I wonder if Heidi had a good idea that Carolyn would not perform well at FTC? I've stated before that I didn't think she would well. Yam Yam impressed me with how confident he was. I was expecting him to be just slightly better than Carolyn. When he started knocking down Heidi's points that Tika was riding coattails, etc. I knew it was going to be a landslide.
> I didn't watch very much of the finale, as I was pretty sure that I knew who the winner was going to be. I felt that if Carson made F3, he would win, and that
> if Yammy was sitting with two people other than Carson, he would win. So, once Heidi eliminated Carson, my interest level decreased considerably. Contrary
> to what Kane said, it seemed pretty obvious to me that the members of the jury loved Yammy's shtick and had come to FTC having decided to vote for him
> unless he made a gigantic blunder of some sort. To his credit, he played to his strengths, joking and vamping it up whenever possible. However, I agree that
> his answers and comments were more substantive than I had expected. Oddly enough, he talked a much better game in front of the jury than the one that
> the viewers saw him actually play.
>
> My overall impression of S44 is somewhat mixed. There was some good game play after the merge, but too many potentially strong players were eliminated,
> or removed from the game, in the early episodes. I suspect that Survivor fans are going to look back at this season as being a poor one with an extremely
> weak F3.

I really enjoyed this finale. Yes, it had it's predictable moments but it also had a lot of unexpected moments such as Heidi giving up immunity to do fire and then winning in record time. No one saw that coming. Carson taking Yam Yam on the F5 reward and not Carolyn was also surprising. She looked super pissed over it. I hope someone asks her if she was pissed enough to have not voted for Carson if he had made F3. The aftershow was great. The reaction to finding out Jaime had a fake idol was priceless and something a reunion show never would have given us. Carolyn and Yam Yam's reaction to finding out about Matt and Frannie was also good and Carolyn appeared in disbelief that Carson works (worked?) for NASA.

The reaction I'm seeing to S44 is mostly positive mainly thanks to the cast.. I've yet to see any signs of the hate S43 got and gets. Dalton made what I think is a very good observation last night about S44:

"It's so odd the way this season of #Survivor has had so many memorable players with so few memorable moments."

https://twitter.com/DaltonRoss/status/1661532435048275968

I agree with you that we lost too many good players early on. They need to cut back on the number of twists and powers and concentrate on execution. The birdcage twist idea was good but they took it took it too far. Sarah's advantage (Inheritance?) was way too powerful but luckily was never used.

With 90 minute episodes next season I hope they use the extra time to show us a lot more strategic gameplay and cutback on the fake idol, etc. shit. Get rid of SITD as well. A player's fate shouldn't be determined by random luck.

--
Brian

On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 6:37:44 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:

> I really enjoyed this finale. Yes, it had it's predictable moments but it also had a lot of unexpected moments such as Heidi giving up immunity to do fire and then winning in record time.

I guess that for me the only real surprises were:
-Carson not winning the F4 immunity challenge.
-Heidi only getting one vote.

I feel that Heidi's fire making victory was heavily foreshadowed earlier in the episode, and by an incident that occurred in E01 when she amazed her
tribe mates with her fire starting ability. I was not the least bit surprised that she beat Carson.

> The aftershow was great.

I will go back and watch it, along with the parts of FTC that I missed due to being mesmerized (yet again) by how stunning Lauren looked with her hair down. :-)
> Dalton made what I think is a very good observation last night about S44:
> "It's so odd the way this season of #Survivor has had so many memorable players with so few memorable moments."

I'm really having a hard time seeing any of these players as "memorable", with the possible exceptions of Carolyn and Yam who were definitely "different types".
I feel that in five years S44 will be remembered as yet another season in which the best players didn't make it to FTC, and the jury ended up voting for the person
who they felt was the most likeable. To be honest, that is pretty much the way I remember S43.

> I agree with you that we lost too many good players early on.

The best thing that SEG/CBS could do to solve this problem would be to go back to two tribes of 9 players each. In S44, Sarah was voted
out of a Tika tribe reduced to only four players, one of whom had been given an immunity bracelet. That stunk!!

How was the S45 preview? Were there any shots of the blonde haired woman with the huge glasses? :-)

On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 9:36:53 PM UTC-6, zeppo wrote:
> On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 6:37:44 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
>
> > I really enjoyed this finale. Yes, it had it's predictable moments but it also had a lot of unexpected moments such as Heidi giving up immunity to do fire and then winning in record time.
> I guess that for me the only real surprises were:
> -Carson not winning the F4 immunity challenge.
> -Heidi only getting one vote.

Heidi was on fire (lol) during the entire F4 cycle. The IC was meant for Carson to win but she kept focused and won.

If it wasn't for Yam Yam's amazing FTC performance, Heidi would have received more than one vote. Did you notice how Carson was openly helping him and Carolyn during FTC?

> > The aftershow was great.
>
> I will go back and watch it, along with the parts of FTC that I missed due to being mesmerized (yet again) by how stunning Lauren looked with her hair down. :-)

Ha ha! Jaime looked good as did Frannie.

> > Dalton made what I think is a very good observation last night about S44:
> > "It's so odd the way this season of #Survivor has had so many memorable players with so few memorable moments."
> I'm really having a hard time seeing any of these players as "memorable", with the possible exceptions of Carolyn and Yam who were definitely "different types".
> I feel that in five years S44 will be remembered as yet another season in which the best players didn't make it to FTC, and the jury ended up voting for the person
> who they felt was the most likeable. To be honest, that is pretty much the way I remember S43.

People will remember Carson and Frannie and I'll remember Maddy.

S43 was a poisoned jury. Gabler's disappeared from the Survivor community as far as I know. Owen and Cassidy are loved. FYI, Cassidy's returning to CBS on August 10!

> > I agree with you that we lost too many good players early on.
> The best thing that SEG/CBS could do to solve this problem would be to go back to two tribes of 9 players each. In S44, Sarah was voted
> out of a Tika tribe reduced to only four players, one of whom had been given an immunity bracelet. That stunk!!

Fans are sick of season after season of three tribes of six, especially when it results in people getting booted by a single vote early in the game. I'd love to see them do a season where the players have a day or two to form their own tribes of nine or 10 players.

> How was the S45 preview? Were there any shots of the blonde haired woman with the huge glasses? :-)

Bruce stood out but other than that it was pretty generic. I think they showed them all but none of the newbies stood out for me other than the Canadian. I don't see him lasting long based on what he said. Guy sounds too aggressive.

--
Brian

On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 9:17:09 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
> Did you notice how Carson was openly helping him and Carolyn during FTC?

Yes, and I didn't like it one bit. In the past, we have seen jury members lobbing soft ball questions at certain players,
or advocating for people in the F3, but to be coaching from the jury bench is a step too far IMO. Probst should have
gone over to Carson in a commercial break and told him to knock it off.

> The aftershow was great.

All I can say is that the jury members were clearly having a lot more fun than I was. :-) What was up with the chanting BTW?
> I'd love to see them do a season where the players have a day or two to form their own tribes of nine or 10 players.

Variations of this have been tried in a few previous seasons. Probably the most infamous example occurred in S10. At the beginning of the game,
Probst told all twenty players that there were two immunity necklaces on the beach, one for a man and one for a woman. The players than raced
to try and retrieve them. For the rest of the first day, no further instructions were given, and the players sort of milled around trying to figure out
what to do next. On Day Two, two nine person tribes were formed using a complex variation of a "school yard pick". The single man and woman who
were not chosen were then banished from the game. S10 is probably well remembered by many Survivor fans as "Tom Westman's Season", but I reckon
that most viewers have long forgotten the awkward (and never repeated) start of that game.

On Friday, May 26, 2023 at 3:31:02 PM UTC-6, zeppo wrote:
> On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 9:17:09 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
>
> > Did you notice how Carson was openly helping him and Carolyn during FTC?
> Yes, and I didn't like it one bit. In the past, we have seen jury members lobbing soft ball questions at certain players,
> or advocating for people in the F3, but to be coaching from the jury bench is a step too far IMO. Probst should have
> gone over to Carson in a commercial break and told him to knock it off.

No commercial breaks when they do it live on location! I was surprised he did it so blatantly. Heidi looked pissed when he was coaching them. In the future players need to ask their alliance members to more than advocate for them if they make jury.

> > The aftershow was great.
>
> All I can say is that the jury members were clearly having a lot more fun than I was. :-) What was up with the chanting BTW?

No idea.

> > I'd love to see them do a season where the players have a day or two to form their own tribes of nine or 10 players.
> Variations of this have been tried in a few previous seasons. Probably the most infamous example occurred in S10. At the beginning of the game,
> Probst told all twenty players that there were two immunity necklaces on the beach, one for a man and one for a woman. The players than raced
> to try and retrieve them. For the rest of the first day, no further instructions were given, and the players sort of milled around trying to figure out
> what to do next. On Day Two, two nine person tribes were formed using a complex variation of a "school yard pick". The single man and woman who
> were not chosen were then banished from the game. S10 is probably well remembered by many Survivor fans as "Tom Westman's Season", but I reckon
> that most viewers have long forgotten the awkward (and never repeated) start of that game.

I'd like them to organically choose tribes with no school yard pick variations. I'm fine with an initial challenge to give a few people immunity but absolutely hate it when people get booted on Day 1 because of some stupid twist.

--
Brian

On Thu, 25 May 2023 17:04:55 -0400, shawn
<nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 25 May 2023 13:13:19 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
><dcg_brian@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 1:47:52?PM UTC-6, shawn wrote:
>>> On Wed, 24 May 2023 16:41:10 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
>>> <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >The finale is listed as just one episode and is titled "Absolute Banger Season." If Carson survives F4 I say he wins.
>>> If being the operative word.
>>
>>Those not so subtle shots of Carson and fire throughout the season were a bit of a giveaway that fire would be his demise. I didn't expect it to happen the way it did though.
>
>Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise since we knew that Carson had
>practiced all of the puzzles for months and clearly would have
>practiced starting fires. So I would have expected him to be the best
>fire builder out of the four. I suppose it could be nerves but he's
>done well in previous challenges so nerves shouldn't have been an
>issue for him.

Afterwards Carson consistently took the high road on what had to be an
incredible disappointment. In light of that I was greatly disappointed
at Heidi's poor performance in the final vote. If she were male they'd
say she had big swinging cojones of steel.

On Sunday, May 28, 2023 at 2:24:36 PM UTC-6, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Thu, 25 May 2023 17:04:55 -0400, shawn
> <nanof...@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 25 May 2023 13:13:19 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
> ><dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 1:47:52?PM UTC-6, shawn wrote:
> >>> On Wed, 24 May 2023 16:41:10 -0700 (PDT), Brian Smith
> >>> <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> >The finale is listed as just one episode and is titled "Absolute Banger Season." If Carson survives F4 I say he wins.
> >>> If being the operative word.
> >>
> >>Those not so subtle shots of Carson and fire throughout the season were a bit of a giveaway that fire would be his demise. I didn't expect it to happen the way it did though.
> >
> >Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise since we knew that Carson had
> >practiced all of the puzzles for months and clearly would have
> >practiced starting fires. So I would have expected him to be the best
> >fire builder out of the four. I suppose it could be nerves but he's
> >done well in previous challenges so nerves shouldn't have been an
> >issue for him.
> Afterwards Carson consistently took the high road on what had to be an
> incredible disappointment. In light of that I was greatly disappointed
> at Heidi's poor performance in the final vote. If she were male they'd
> say she had big swinging cojones of steel.

Yam Yam did a great job of selling his game and nullifying Heidi's points against him. I'm not surprised we got another x–1–0 result. It would have been interesting if it was a F2 between Carson and Yam Yam. Carson was very well liked but would ha have been able to sell his game to the jury?

--
Brian

On Sunday, May 28, 2023 at 6:09:45 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:

> Yam Yam did a great job of selling his game and nullifying Heidi's points against him. I'm not surprised we got another x–1–0 result..

I will concede that Yammy was smart to focus on his strengths when responding to questions, but he also benefited from the fact that
he was facing a friendly jury who were predisposed to vote for him, and were not going to challenge some of the things he said. He
was also fortunate to have been sitting beside two players who didn't really have a lot to say about their games. As I've said before, I
knew that Yammy was going to win, but was surprised that Heidi did not get a few more votes. She probably thought that her decision to
put herself in the fire making competition was going to impress the jury members and swing the vote in her favour. You're right about Yam's
sharp responses to her attempts to portray his game in a different light than what he was presenting to the jury. She probably should have
been a lot more assertive with him, and not allowed him to have the final word in several exchanges.

>It would have been interesting if it was a F2 between Carson and Yam Yam. Carson was very well liked but would he have been able to sell his game to the jury?

In such a showdown, Yam would not have gotten a single vote IMO. It is my belief that the two best strategic players in the "new era" have been Carson and Ricard.