The fact that the winner of redemption island is going to have to win at most two immunity challenges to win the money and possibly only one is going to ruin the game. Given the fact that the jury is made up of people who spent time on redemption island and former members of the opposite tribe then anyone of the remaining four who make it back to the game are a lock for the money if they can win one or two immunity challenges. It didn't even matter who it was.

Rob and his group played a perfect game but it was completely and totally unavoidable to basically just have an immunity challenge or two to have them win it all. The season would have been good enough on it's own. It's too bad that the least deserving champion in survivor history, whoever it is, only has to win two immunity challenges as the rest of the game was meaningless.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Completely agree with all of this. Even if Burton or Lill had won season 7, they at least would have had to do things after the merge besides win challenges. This seems like another in the long line of poorly thought out twists for the show, and it's even worse if the primary justification for it sprang from Na'onka and Kelly quitting last year.

no it wouldn't have. and pretty much everyone in this thread was complaining how boring the show was in the last few weeks because it was so predictable. if you want to see more seasons like marquesas and thailand, so be it. i like it when things get shaken up, and there's still a huge chance rob wins it all. but this at least adds drama. if there was no redemption island, you could pretty much have said...well rob is going to win it like 2 months ago.

i could not disagree more with your stance on this. winning immunity challenges is incredibly hard to do. not to many people in survivor history have been able to win their way to the end. and even if they do it's not a guarantee you win the million. the least deserving champion in survivor history will always be sandra, or natalie going up against russell. a big part of this game is physical and emotional strength. to continue to survive challenges is more impressive to me than someone riding coattails to the end.

I think Rob really screwed himself by blindsiding Grant. He could trust Grant and Phillip more than the 2 girls. The person coming back from loser island will align with the girls and Rob is gone. If he sent Natalie, he still has three. The person coming back is powerless.

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The idea that someone was coming back from redemption island is one of the reasons they stayed so strong. In regards to voting someone out, they always had to be concerned that redemption island would end and put another enemy in the game. In previous seasons, most "big moves" were taking a 1 person advantage in the voting by teaming up with someone new. The thing is that the new people had deep alliances with someone who could be coming back and could put you back in the minority. The unknown element made the safest thing to do to remove the whole other alliance and not be too concerned that one person came back.
My point is that someone from redemption island was going to come back. Yes, it's impressive that Matt is winning(or staying alive with the new "not last" rules they put in) and that Mike seems to perform really well but someone was going to come back no matter what and they'll roll the dice for one or two immunities for a million dollars. No one on the other tribe deserves to win and they certainly don't deserve a representative at the end because the person won one or two immunity challenges after winning a competition between the weak players from the other tribe and themselves.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm gonna wait and reserve judgement on the Redeption Island concept until I see
how it all plays out. Personally I would have liked to see the island competitor come
back when there were 6 people left in the game and go from there. I look forward to
the finale on Sunday.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

it just changes the mentality and that's not necessarily a bad thing. do you also have a problem with re-buying into a poker tournament? i mean, you're out...you should be out. but you can rebuy back in, and possibly win it all. do you really deserve that?

if matt wins his way back in, he did a pretty impressive feat. whether you agree with the rule about redemption island or not, that's how the game is this time.

the show doesn't have much more to offer in rule changes that will keep it interesting. this could be the last one. i think it's made the show a lot more intriguing.

But one could easily make the case that the redemption island twist itself facilitated the Pagonging. Some of the Zaps like Dave seemed to just give up on trying to find a crack in the ruling alliance and simply resigned themselves to trying their luck at redemption island. And surely one of the reasons the Pagonging has been so complete was the lack of pre-merge tribe switches (as was also the case in Tocantins and Samoa, where single tribes were also able to decimate the other side). This strikes me as a much better way of making sure the late game is volatile and entertaining than giving second and third chances.


Sidestepping the issue of what makes a deserving and undeserving winner, I don't think Boilermaker Rick was downplaying the importance of immunity challenges. The problem however is that whoever emerges from Redemption Island is going to have a huge endgame advantage over everyone else left in the game through little of their own doing. Their hands will have been clean for multiple eliminations and they will have been able to bond with a majority of jury members. This is a ridiculous structural advantage, and as he said, the identity of the person reentering the game does not really matter.

I don't have a problem with the concept of redemption island. It was good before. I would have a problem if there was a rebuy in a poker tournament that allowed you to go right to the final table with a 1/4 or 1/5 chance of winning it all. Redemption island should have ended 2 or 3 shows ago.
Getting voted out twice and then being "not last" a few times and then winning one or two immunity challenges isn't that impressive to me.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

But the thing is for bigger tournaments there are cutoffs as to when you can rebuy and your chip count is not going to be beyond the original buy-in. The analogy here would be a poker tournament in which a person can rebuy into the final table with a bigger stack than anyone else.

come on, you really think that anybody other than matt has an advantage to win it all against rob should he go to the final? in fact it may be more interesting if grant came back in rather than matt but those two are the only ones that could make a case to win. i don't think mike, even with his move with the families, has a chance against rob in a final vote. andrea couldn't make a convincing case either.

he's had to survive about 8 challenges, and still has to win 2 more. he's had to win more challenges than probably anybody in survivor. i know the show isn't all about winning challenges but it's a big part of it. his social game was absolutely horrendous. but i'd rather see him win than someone who rode coattails, which happens a lot more in survivor than someone deserving.

i will agree with you that i think the redemption island winner should have come back already; but i still like the idea of it and i think it'll make for a very interesting finale.

if it's a final 2 i think the jury would be rather split on the tribes, wouldn't it?

The only one who would have the advantage of not having his hands dirty in eliminations would be Matt.

And BRick, Matt surviving the "win or go home" Redemption Island for most of the season was impressive.

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Mike probably won't win because his edit is shit, but yes I absolutely do think he could beat Rob in a final vote. His original tribe is going to be comprising much of the jury, and he's spoken to everyone who has passed through redemption island at this point in the game. Andrea and Grant are trickier cases since they were complicit in eliminating the Zaps, but redemption island has at the very least given them the opportunity to rectify things/explain their side of the story to Matt, Mike, and in Andrea's case, Ralph. I think this is a big advantage that they have over those still in the game.

There is a reason that so many people get voted out because they "have friends on the jury". The winner of redemption island, unless it's Grant or Andrea, will have significantly more friends on the jury. 2 of the 6 will be in the finals. The other 4 will probably be somewhat upset at being "backstabbed". Everyone else spent significant time together on redemption island and in the game together and were able to avoid backstabbing anyone.
The "not last" rule makes it even worse. Look at who Matt has beaten in those challenges. It was 1 on 1 against subpar competition most of the time and then he simply had to be better than one person in the last 4. Beating David, Julie(weak), Steve(quit), and Ralph(would never have finished that puzzle) isn't that impressive. Now, beating Grant and Mike will be impressive, as was a few of his early game wins.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

...and anyone from the other tribe.
It was the first time he did it. Being "not last" a few times has not been but he's got his work ahead of him as Grant and Mike will be tough to beat.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Matt has only been in 2 tribal councils and he was voted off both times.

And I agree they should've left it at one shot to get back in the game.

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I think the only one Rob beats at the end is Phillip. I think he loses against everyone else.

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if there's only a final 2, the jury will be comprised of an even number from both tribes. andrea, natalie, ashley, grant, and philip. whatshernuts, ralph, mike, steve, and dave. (should it be matt/rob in the final)

i'm just wondering how the immunity would go...if matt won the final immunity why would he take rob to the final...hm.

if there's a final 3, that's a major flaw and i wouldn't like that.

I fully expect a final 3 as I don't see how they're going to have the time to do a final 2 on Sunday. They would have to fit in 4 tribal councils in addition to the final 2 (F5, F5 with redeemed, F4, F3). With at least one other duel in there, I just don't see how this could possibly work.

Also, wasn't the last tribal council on day 35? That would leave: day 36: F5, day 37: F5 with redeemed, day 38: F4, day 39: F3 with jury questioning. Obviously they might be able to get around one of these with an elimination-immunity-second elimination tribal council, but I just don't see how they're going to be able to cover everything in two hours unless it's a three-person final.

hm, you may be right zeph. i don't like the 3 person final...any season really. i just don't think it's necessary...

final 3 is looking most likely,not enough time to do all the TC's needed for F2.

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Maybe they skip the awful remembrance walk.

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afucking men, lord do i hate those. we get to see all these guys again at the reunion anyway.

I hate the reunion show too.

as soon as the winner is announced....PTFB

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That's why this show is best watched with a DVR. I always fast forward through the rememberance walk and usually skip 95% of the reunion show if not all of it.

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you know they're going to dedicate at least 2 segments to philip and you'll hear the hoots and hollers from the audience. it feels sometimes like a bad jerry springer episode.

I think the 15 minute recap that starts the finale with Jeff Probst detailing every minute detail of the season is even worse than the remembrance walk. It's especially annoying to me since they often give away the winner by focusing on one contestant a lot more than the others.

yep, another reason to DVR.


Regarding them giving away the winner, that's nothing new. 95% of all reality shows I watch I can tell you within the first 10 minutes who is getting voted out based on clues in the editing. My girlfriend thinks I'm psychic because I have a near perfect record for predicting the winners/losers of every reality show episode we watch just from editing clues. I'll tell her so and so is going to win this episode of Chopped and she'll say no way, his food looks gross. And I'll say, it has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with the editing at the begining of the show where they focused on him telling some sob story about wanting to win the money for his sick kid. Things like that are always dead giveaways for what will happen later in the episode.


Same goes for Survivor. At the start of last episode, the blond chick said how much she loves blindsiding people. I turned to my gf and said, uh oh guess who's getting blindsided next...her. Then over the next 20 minutes they hinted way too much that she was the target and I turned to my gf and said, "they are painting her as the target way too much, I bet she wins immunity" and sure enough she won immunity.

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