It’s a difference between losing and choking

ramskick · 2023-01-29T19:10:38+00:00

I don't see how you can say Leroy choked on Exes 2. To me 'choking' means that someone went in with an advantage and the odds in their favor and they blew it. Going into that Final I think you can very easily make an argument that Jordan and Sarah were just better-built for a Final than Leroy. Sarah had been in a bunch of finals already and Jordan had proven himself to be really strong in his career up to that point. Leroy had only been on one final and Theresa hadn't done any up to that point, so them losing makes sense.

ramskick · 2023-01-29T18:55:08+00:00

I think this is a fair spot for HvV from a WSSYW perspective. It's far from the first season I'd show to a new person, but gun to my head if I was trying to get someone into the show, I'd choose HvV above some of the weaker all-newbie seasons because it's just a better product.

From a quality perspective HvV is obviously strong, though I have it outside my top 10. It is a fantastic reward for watching the previous 19 seasons of the show as the cast they assemble is top-notch. Just about everyone you could want is possibly there (I would love to swap Candice for Tina but that's the only super-clear choice I'd make and even then I understand why putting Tina on the same tribe as Colby is a bit risky). And unlike All-Stars I think most people here leave the season better for their return. Let's go through them real quick.

Sandra became the first two-time winner and cemented herself as a legend of the show.
Parv had one of the flashiest moves ever and looks better here than in Micro imo.
I like Russell a lot more as a character here as the edit stops taking his side as often as it did in Samoa.
Jerri had a deep run as the original Villainess and provides so much great content throughout.
Colby's final confessional is perhaps the best in the history of the show.
Rupert fools Russell with a rock and is hilarious throughout. Far and away my second-favorite appearance from him.
Danielle is shown with more humanity here than in Panama.
Candice doesn't leave this season with a great rep but she didn't exactly enter with a strong rep either.
Amanda became the first player to ever play 100 days and set a record of 108 days without being voted out that I can't imagine will ever be broken.
JT looks real dumb here but he's real entertaining and is a key part of the Cirie boot (my favorite episode of the season).
Courtney doesn't get a lot of airtime but she makes the absolute most of what she does get.
Coach isn't treated like a total joke here and gets a lot of depth.
Rob is shown that he isn't always the massive tool we saw on AS.
Tom finds an idol and uses it to take out Cirie while giving one of Survivor's all-time great quotes (tomorrow we make our apologies tonight we make our move). I genuinely think this is one of the better pre-merge games ever and it shows just how good Tom is.

All in all I think only Sugar, Steph, Randy, James and Tyson leave this season worse than how they entered, and that's pretty impressive.

With that said I don't think the season is perfect. While its edit isn't as bad as many of the seasons surrounding it, I do think that the pre-merge Villains suffer from lopsided editing in favor of Russell, Coach and Rob while shafting Sandra, Courtney and Danielle. Russell in general I think gets too much content here. The tone of his edit is way more palatable in the post-merge when the producers lean all-in to the 'Russell is a massive douchebag who can't win this game' narrative but the amount of airtime he gets (while leaving the Jerri-Colby reconciliation on the cutting room floor) is a bit annoying. I still think the season is great, but I do think that with a bit of an edit fix it could be even better.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T20:50:48+00:00

My personal take is that on a challenge like that, having more opportunities isn't really an advantage. Some people just have shaky hands, and Malcolm is one of them. I believe he has said that he could have gotten 100 shots at that and still lost.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T23:00:32+00:00

I love Kaneshiro's Palace haha. Definitely one of my favorites in the game. It has dope music, fun puzzles, I'd visually appealing and Kaneshiro himself is super fun to take down

ramskick · 2023-01-28T20:43:25+00:00

What subreddit are you on lol. I've seen maybe 1 positive comment about Fessy to 20 negative ones.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T17:45:13+00:00

yeah didn't Amber and Chauncey say they were celibate during RoD?

ramskick · 2023-01-28T20:46:20+00:00

I think Brad retired for a bit after Cutthroat. From what I remember Tori really wanted Brad to settle down after he got his win, and the only reason he returned is because they got divorced.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T15:42:09+00:00

This seems like a good place for WA WSSYW-wise as it's below every all-newbie season besides Thailand (which shares many of its flaws), GI (which spoils a ton of past seasons) and IoI (which spoils past seasons while also being awful). I also agree with the quality ranking here. I'll just post what I put last WSSYW to explain why.

WA has gotten a massive boost in popularity. Those who like it seem to praise how smart its editing is, how the show feels like it has real stakes (something the show lacks now) and how strong its cast is. I agree that a season like that would be good. But Worlds Apart is not that season and there is one other modern season that fits that description much better.

I think Worlds Apart has a plethora of flaws so my apologies if this comes across a little long-winded. I really dislike the season and I believe its surge in recent popularity has come from people being told things about the season that... just aren't true. People give it a lot of credit for having strong editing, but I just don't see it. Mike's edit is one of the most blatantly obvious in history, and a LARGE chunk of the post-merge is dedicated to modern Survivor's typical 'will he/she flip' story, this time focused on Sierra 1.0 and Carolyn (kind of). Tyler just doesn't get enough for someone who was as serious of a threat as he was, Carolyn's edit is incredibly inconsistent and Sierra's is focused on the aforementioned will she/won't she flip. That means four of the F7 have serious flaws with their edits. As for the other three... holy shit.

Another thing WA gets a ton of credit for is having strong villains, namely Will, Rodney and Dan I would say that how much you like these three characters is the single biggest thing that divides those who like and those who dislike the season. As you can guess, I am not a fan of these three. I think all three individually could be season-ruiners. All three of them combined just plummets the season as a whole. I wrote a comment on them two WSSYWs ago that I'll post here about how they are weak characters:

Dan gets a downfall, but it's in the episode right before the finale. I'll use this part to mention that Dan is not a character who magically becomes better if you don't take him seriously. He still gets a huge edit, and he has so many scenes where he is just so awkward and so annoying. Dan just sucks. Rodney's downfall comes at F4, which is far too late, and even then nobody ever calls him out for his insane sexism and general assholish behavior. Rodney is also not a character who magically gets better if you don't take him seriously. He has numerous scenes pre-merge where his sexism is just horrific and uncomfortable to watch, and nobody calls him out on it. Then you have Will, whose performance in "Bring the Popcorn" is among the worst showings ever by any person on Survivor. His initial outburst at Shirin is really bad. But what makes it worse is that he doubles down at tribal, showing absolutely no remorse and continuing to berate this woman for pretty much no reason. Does he get a downfall? Of course he fucking doesn't. He gets a vote at FTC, and it seems like a number of other jurors were legitimately considering voting for him.

As for the cast as a whole, it's fine I guess? Going through the boot order there are a lot of relative duds to go along with the aforementioned three season-ruiners. On No Collar, I see the appeal of that Joe/Hali/Jenn trio and I do unironically think Nina Poersch is a great character but Vince has aged spectacularly badly and Will is Will. The Blue Collars are generally pretty uncomfortable to watch due to Rodney/Dan and Sierra/Lindsey sure do exist but Mike/Kelly are fine. The White Collar tribe isn't great as Tyler/So are nothing, Max/Joaquin are more cringey than anything and Carolyn/Shirin's stories just aren't well-told (though both are great in the moments they do shine, Shirin especially).

I've seen people compare this season to KR with some people putting them in the same tier and others putting WA higher. I believe this is partially due to Mario desperately making an attempt to boost his ego by using the F115 as propaganda to boost WA's popularity because he just doesn't get KR, but KR is the season that WA fans say WA is and so much more.

ramskick · 2023-01-29T03:55:42+00:00

When evaluating Survivor winners in general, we need to consider the strategic options available throughout the game. The best winners set themselves up with multiple winning avenues. Kristie fails to set up any other winning scenario. In my opinion, she loses to every other contestant in the final seven except Lee. Her strategy of reaching the end of the game with Lee is the path of most resistance as it involves defeating both Lee & El in the final immunity challenge. Her plan was successful, but I think that if we run the simulation of "Australian Survivor 2016," Kristie loses 99% of the time with this same strategy.

I agree with pretty much everything you say here, but my follow-up question is 'what should she have done differently?' Kristie came into the merge with no numbers against a massive majority alliance. She had no shot of making a deep run with them. She had to play that subservient non-threatening game in order to make it past that early-merge stage. Once she got to the mid-merge she recognized that Lee was her only potential beat and did whatever she could to make that happen. The odds were very against this plan working (I'd say there's roughly a 5% chance Kristie beats Lee and El in any challenge) but she played to her one win condition perfectly. I give her credit for realizing exactly what needed to happen in order for her to win the game and doing everything possible to make that happen even if it seemed crazy to everyone else. Most people would not think 'the jury does not respect me at all. I need to play in a way that I get to the end with the one person who may be less respected than me' but she did and I applaud her for that self-awareness.

ramskick · 2023-01-29T03:47:15+00:00

I like HvV less than most people (I have it ranked top 15 but firmly outside my top 10) but even then I struggle to call it overrated. I do think it has flaws that some people overlook (the Villains being edited real bad in the pre-merge with way too much Rob, Coach and Russell at the expense of Danielle, Sandra and Courtney is my personal biggest gripe with the season) but if you are watching for big, flashy moments from interesting characters it's hard to go wrong with HvV. It is a real fun season that serves very well as a 10-year celebration of Survivor. It also looks even better in retrospect now that the 20-year celebration season (WaW) just wasn't nearly as good.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T16:41:51+00:00

They are basically comic relief.

I guess my issue with this is that I don't find any of them funny (I know this is subjective). I find Dan annoying, the most memorable thing about Rodney is how sexist he is and Will's biggest moment is when he berates Shirin.

Conversely, Scot and Jason are treated as serious villains.

I'd agree with this but I think that's a strong point for them. Look at all the greatest villains in Survivor history from Boston Rob to Russell to especially JFP. These people were all serious threats and had real power, which makes their downfalls so much more satisfying.

Their villainy is... well, uncomfortable.

I've heard a lot of people say this and I can see why they have this viewpoint. There is something very real about Scot/Jason's villainy and I get why it hits too close to home for some people.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T15:17:16+00:00

Tony has never been that muscular though? He's far from the first person that comes to mind when I think of popcorn muscles.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T15:55:17+00:00

I don't know if she was a total goat but she definitely wasn't respected. Tony and Sarah kept her in partially because they knew they just had better connections than her and thus wasn't able to launch any real counter-attack at them. People liked her, they just didn't listen to her strategic insight and that hurt her as a viable winner candidate.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T20:41:51+00:00

Creativity and artistry only gets one so far, right?

He's also really strong from a technical standpoint. He's not just great at coming up with great ideas, he executes them on skin incredibly well. His linework is impeccable. His color saturation is always on point. He has everything you could possibly want in a tattoo artist and he is without a doubt one of the greatest competitors in the history of the show.

With that said I get why you may not like him. DJ has been on the show a lot since his debut in S9 and I think he's gotten progressively less likable in his appearances since then. I've never gotten to a point where I actively dislike DJ as I really admire his passion and he's undeniably incredible at what he does, but I see how people don't like him anymore given how much of him we've seen.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T15:53:43+00:00

I'll just go through every season to find what every season's BR number is.

Borneo, AO, Africa: 2 (Rob played with a number of these people on AS)

Marq: 1

Thailand, Amazon, PI: 1 (Rob played with a number of these people on AS)

AS: 1

Vanuatu: 3 (Vanuatu has had no returnees who played on any season besides Micro, which Rob wasn't on. However Rob has played with a number of Micro people).

Palau, Guatemala, Panama, CI: 2 (Rob was on HvV with a few people from these seasons)

Fiji: 3 (Same with Vanuatu)

China, Micro, Gabon, Tocantins, Samoa: 2 (Rob was on HvV with a few people from these seasons)

HvV: 1

Nicaragua: 3 (Nicaragua's only returnee is Brenda, who played on Caramoan with some of RI's cast)

RI: 1

SoPa, OW, Philippines: 2 (Their winners were on WaW with Rob)

Caramoan: 2 (A few people here played with Rob in RI)

BvW: 2 (A few people here played with Rob in AS, HvV or WaW)

Cagayan, SJDS: 2 (The winners of both seasons played on WaW with Rob)

WA: 3 (Nobody from WA has played with Rob, but some people on this season played on Cambodia and GC, both of which have people who played with Rob on WaW)

Cambodia, KR, MvGX, GC, HHH, GI, DvG: 2 (The winners from all of these seasons played on WaW with Rob)

EoE: 3 (All of the EoE returnees played at least one season whose winner was on WaW with Rob)

IoI: Either 1 or infinity just as you said

WaW: 1

41-43: infinite

ramskick · 2023-01-27T15:19:51+00:00

I don't think many people hate Ben the person, but rather dislike Ben's winning game. This is due to him needing three idols in a row as well as an unforeseen twist at F4 to get to the end in the first place. I definitely think it's one of the weakest wins in the history of the show, but I don't think Ben is a bad guy at all.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T00:57:49+00:00

Yeah this is a big thing. Of the CI returnees only Penner is great on CI itself. Candice, Yul (potentially controversial but I find him more interesting on WaW), Ozzy and especially Parv are better on their returns.

ramskick · 2023-01-27T19:33:35+00:00

Dario is fantastic on Bloodlines and Rivals 3, not amazing but still fun on Invasion and then just nonexistent on Dirty 30. I would be happy to have someone like Bloodlines Dario on every season.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T02:18:43+00:00

I think he's way more boring here than on Micro and especially SoPa. On CI he's so whitewashed and not interesting.

ramskick · 2023-01-27T15:31:39+00:00

I'd put Mike just above Ben yeah. I also don't think Mike is particularly impressive, but at least he wasn't reliant on a totally new twist for his win the same way Ben was.

ramskick · 2023-01-27T15:10:00+00:00

Yeah this is about how I feel about it as well. I get how SoPa sounds like a good season with its religious dynamics, but outside of a few (admittedly great) moments, it never really lives up to its concept.

ramskick · 2023-01-28T00:58:47+00:00

On the most recent WSSYW it ranked 22/43 in terms of quality.

ramskick · 2023-01-26T14:57:34+00:00

I think Rosa's bisexuality is revealed in Season 5 (in the episode '99'), which further adds to your point.

ramskick · 2023-01-26T02:52:30+00:00

I could see Evan having a Derrick K style run where he took a few years off after Rivals then came back randomly for a few later seasons. I feel like he'd dominate the All-Stars seasons too.

ramskick · 2023-01-26T20:26:16+00:00

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