way to go rob. the right guy won. if people thought natalie was creepy, take a look at dave. at least natalie's a girl. dave not only wanted to give him the million dollars, but add a million kisses to it.

Finally a jury got it right. Rob deserved this win and is IMO the greatest player in this shows history.

Great great speech at the council by Dave.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Right guy won for sure, David's speech at the end kinda confirmed it. I did like when David proposed to his GF there at the end also. The asshole in me was hoping she would say "its too soon".

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I just can't get on board with this. I think how a player does in his or her first season should always be weighed much more heavily than subsequent appearances, and Rob's poor showing there keeps him out of the top tier for me (same for Parvati). His game this year was fantastic, but it's much more impressive to me when one is able to do that as a stranger playing against other strangers.

Also, I thought David just looked like an attention whore at the final tribal.

So much luck goes into this game I think its flawed to only judge someone on their first appearance. There have been countless players who would've done well "but for" a tiny occurrence that they had no or little control over. How many games would've been completely different if a certain team didn't squeak out an immunity early in the game that changed the course of the rest of the game. How many players got screwed by tribal swaps in the history of the game? How bout one guy losing because of a purple rock.

Take a look at season 2. So many people came out of that season with great respect for Colby and Tina for the way they played, but how completely different would that game had been if Michael didn't fall into the fire? If that happens there's a real good chance that Colby goes first at the merge and that's the last we ever hear of him. Colby's actually a great comparison to Boston Rob. Look how much better Rob has done in his subsequent appearances on the show? Colby has been awful, a pathetic shell of his former self. Do you consider him a better player than Rob just because he did better on his season (although he actually did horrible considering he could've taken Keith to the final 2 and won the game)? Remember, Colby only got as far as he did because Micahel fell in a fire.

Also, I disagree that Rob played bad his first season. He completely controlled his tribe from day one till the merge. His tribe did poorly in challenges and they went into the merge outnumbered. Rob lost the first IC ( I think either Kathy or Sean won) and Rob was tossed. If his tribe did a little better at challenges earlier in the game and he went to the merge with a numbers advantage there is a good chance he would've run the table or at least did as well as Colby in season 2.

Another great example is Kathy from that same season 4. Everyone considers her a great player for how well she rebounded in that game and ended up making it all the way to the end. But, in reality, she was the most hated person on her tribe from day 1 and the only reason she survived is because her tribe won the first 3 immunities and she didn't have to go to tribal. People considered her a great player, but if she didn't get so lucky at the begining of the game she would've been gone early and you wouldn't even remember who she was now. She's also another so called great player who came back to the game and got completely manhandled by Rob, a so called worse player.

I think its best to look at someone's entire body of work in evaluating their skill as a player. Socially, Rob has dominated every tribe he's ever been on. Twice, he's led an alliance all the way to the very end and one of those times 1 the money, the other time it went to his wife. Overall, he's done very well in challenges. I don't think there's any doubt that he's the best to ever play this game now that he has the championship on his resume.

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So which of the other two was more deserving? They were both constantly deferring to Rob, not only throughout the show, but even in the portion where they are supposed to make speeches to the jury. Each one stresses their allegiance with Rob as the reason they made it so far. Natalie gave absolutely, positively, no reason to vote for her over Rob -- literally going through her speech, I would challenge you to find one thing she said that was meant to distinguish her as a positive for receiving votes. I thought Phillip did slightly better, but even so, he still referred to Rob as the mastermind and gave the majority of the credit of keeping the alliance and votes they way they did to Rob. Phillip at least took credit for doing some investigative research and reporting that back to Rob. I thought it was funny that potentially his best point was made at the reunion show where he outlined that he knew Rob was controlling the votes, and that he wanted to cast himself as a villain in order to take the heat off of Rob. This was an easy call -- I said even before they read the first vote that it would be 8 votes Rob, 1 vote Phillip (not sure if that's what it ended up to be, but draw your own conclusions from how they read the votes.) The redneck voted for Phillip because he hated Rob, and everyone else voted for the obvious first choice.

David is too much of a black/white intellectual and not enough of a personable person to play the game properly. His reasons are sound, and he laid it out perfectly at the end of the game. I don't think he was intending to be an attention whore; I just think he doesn't realize that the world doesn't operate like he think it does (same could be said for several people on this board.)

I also felt bad for a couple of the people on the reunion panel who never even got a question. With an hour, you could at least toss someone a small bone on an easy question. Like, "Do you, <x>, think you could have survived on Redemption Island as long as Matt?" Those shows are always hard to gauge though, because emotions are a little on edge. I think there is a heavy dose of sour grapes going on against the winner, and the finalists who didn't win are always a little bit upset. All of these people get paid for their time there -- they typically make more than they ever would for the same amount of time in their real life occupations... in reality, they all are winners -- some just more than others.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Good thoughts from both shakes and newper.

So who do you guys think will be the 2 returning players in the next season?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Phillip and Steve

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Obviously loads of luck goes into every game, but I consider Survivor in its purest form to be a game of strangers against strangers. I don't think first season placement is the be-all, end-all, but I feel like a lot of people place far too much emphasis on seasons with returning players. Pre-game alliances and reputation-based advantages and disadvantages fundamentally alter the nature of the game. Hell, tonight we heard both Natalie and Phillip suggest that Rob's "experience in the game" made him a good alliance partner. It's great that he was able to exploit that sentiment to gain control, but it's something that simply does not come up in regular seasons.

Rob has undeniably played better than Colby in the all-star seasons, but I'm not sure how much stock to put into that since he didn't seem to give a crap about either of them. How much should we really penalize him when he was completely disinterested in his two return appearances? To use a comparable case, if people in BBAS had complied with Will's requests to be voted out before the jury, would that undermine his status as the best to have ever played that game (especially if someone like Danielle had won)? I don't think simply placing better than another contestant in respective original seasons automatically means one is a better player; if that was the case, all rankings would simply be winners followed by goats. Winners can make mistakes and great players can be screwed by the challenges at the end. I do however believe early results should be more heavily weighed in any ranking. I think I would probably have Rob ahead of Colby at this point, but I simply wouldn't have him at the very top.


But couldn't one argue that his desire to completely control of the tribe at least partially undermined the tribe's ability to secure a post-merge numbers advantage? Taking out Peter early certainly opened up his alliance options within the tribe, but it also likely hurt Maraamu's ability to win challenges and secure a numbers advantage (though Gabe was such a buzzsaw during the pre-merge challenges that it might have been fruitless). Similarly, Rob's direct attacks on John certainly limited his time frame for being able to arrange a mutiny and he did not really do much to get Sean ahead of him on the pecking order.


I don't rate Kathy that highly precisely because of how poorly she did socially in the beginning of the game. I really don't think though that season 8 is the best thing to use to illustrate that Rob is superior to her. Given the fact that we're acknowledging the huge impact luck and contingency can have on the game, I hope you'll also note the huge advantages Rob enjoyed in season 8 and 22. Everyone who had enjoyed the slightest bit of strategic success was pretty much drawing dead at the start of All-Stars, and Rob also benefitted by being on the most physically gifted tribe and by being able to exploit his relationship with Lex (the latter is something that simply would not be possible on a regular season). Similarly, while I think Rob is a far better player than Russell, he would have had major problems if the two were on opposite tribes at the start of this season.


I still rate Heidik as the best I've seen.

Oh I absolutely think Rob deserved to win this season given who he was up against at the end. I was simply indicating that I don't think he's the best of all-time.


Hopefully Phillip and Coach.

if anything it would've been harder for rob to make it to the finals in any subsequent season because he was a "celebrity". what he did this year was probably the hardest thing for someone to pull off, especially with the x factor of redemption island.

things fell in his lap a few times, but things also didn't go his way all the time and he still persevered. he played his heart out. up to this point i think it's been one of the most impressive things i've seen a survivor do.

I'm glad Rob won. He deserved it. But his tribe may have been one of the dumbest in Survivor history. I think it was two episodes ago he said he'd be in trouble if the other members would talk to each other.

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Yeah after reading this I'm glad I didnt watch the last 4 episodes. What the hell did Rob do to win? He led a group of morons around by the nose the whole time because he was a celebrity. If Rob was just a guy no one had ever met he would have been voted out much sooner. His tribe was full of idiots and they should all be banned from any future seasons. Zapatera had the right idea to get rid of their 'all star' right away, they just shouldnt have thrown the challenge. Eventually they would have lost on their own and they could have gotten rid of him then.

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bringing phillip back would really be lame. he pretty much expressed all that he is; this would just be retread. and now we know that he's a race card carrying a-hole on top of being a self-delluded loudmouth.

he would have no chance making it past the first tribal council, i would think. he made ratings, i'm sure, but this wouldl be such overkill if they brought him back.

bring back people that at least had some strategy and didn't get a chance to do anything with it. dave, mike, stephanie...if we're just talking about the last season.

I was very happy with the way the show went. My concerns about redemption island went away when the other tribe did not have someone return. Russel was so mad at the finale it was hilarious. This season showed just how overrated he is in terms of being a good player. He had a bad alliance and a bad attitude and still didn't even understand why his tribe did what they did to him.

I'm thinking that redemption island may include two people from the past who had to leave the game because of medical issues and never "got the shot at the money" they deserved. I don't know who that would be though. I don't know how I feel about every season having former contestants but I guess they have to shake things up.

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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!

ratings, rick. i agree with you on the former contestants coming back having to leave because of medical reasons.

Zack I was being sarcastic. Especially since they buried the hatchet at the finale.

Truthfully I'd like Mike and David back.

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The people who come back from previous seasons are going to have even bigger targets on their backs this next season because of what happened with Rob and Russell.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/tv/2011/05/survivor-villain-russell-gets-new-show.html

It's funny that Rob claimed his Survivor experience was over so he could go home and be a father and now he's doing a different reality show.

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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!

He's on the M-Jeff plan for family time.

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thank the gods.