Survivor - Heroes vs. Villians (season 20) official discussion thread (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Hanson Yoo


I need a script to automatically insert eyerolls whenever I respond to Lockwood.

Now, if he could have gotten away with it, that would have made him the greatest player ever.

 

[Hanson]

But how would we know he got away with it if he got away with it?

 

[Greg.K]

If he got away with it and we all knew about it, he would be even GREATER!


Seriously, though - he was the first winner and was an innovator by default, but was he really "legendary"? I think he's perhaps a bit overrated. He won 4-3, and won one of those jury votes on a random number guess.

 

[mattCR]

To be honest, when I first heard Hatch's argument on Taxes, I thought he had a valid point. He had assumed (incorrectly) that the $1M prize he received from CBS was "after taxes" and that CBS had paid it out as a post-tax amount.


Foolish, but a decent argument. If he could have won that argument, that CBS had ever let him believe that, that would have been epic

 

[Hanson]

Originally Posted by Greg Kettell

If he got away with it and we all knew about it, he would be even GREATER!


Seriously, though - he was the first winner and was an innovator by default, but was he really "legendary"? I think he's perhaps a bit overrated. He won 4-3, and won one of those jury votes on a random number guess.

By default? That's absurd. No one else was doing any real gameplay in season one, so you can't presume that the precepts of Survivor would have just shown up that or any other season had it not been for Hatch (especially since it would have been canceled fairly early on).


As for "pick a number" -- there are a lot of people who believe that Buis was just screwing around and intended on voting for Hatch anyway. And even if it was an honest question, the mere fact that Hatch was in a 50/50 situation after engineering the elimination (and considering how close he was to the very, very bitter Colleen Haskell) was a feat in and of itself.

 

[Greg.K]

He was clearly the best of season 1. But I don't think the concept of an alliance was that much of a stretch.


He didn't fair so well in All-Stars, I think if you appear in multiple seasons your strategy should be adaptable enough to go far into the game. It would have been nice to see him on HvV, though.

 

[Hanson]

To be fair, none of the past winners fared well in All-Stars. They were all systematically voted out (well, except for Jenna).


I know it sounds like the concept of the Alliance isn't a stretch, but they couldn't get one going at Pagong, even after they were getting... Pagonged. I don't think they would have gotten one going at Tagi if it weren't for Richard. You have to keep in mind that most of the players and the audience were still thinking this was some sort of Survival challenge. Hatch immediately turned it into a game.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by Hanson Yoo

You obviously missed my point, which was that someone who can't even figure out that he needs to pay taxes on $1 million in winnings (or perhaps ask an expert about it) and ends up doing a lot of jail time as a result doesn't fall into the great thinkers category. He hasn't shown much intelligence in recent years, so who cares what he says?


Does anyone really believe no one from the show told his his winning were taxable? He would have gotten a 1099 from them- he could have at least taken it to H&R Block and asked them what it was.


BTW, someone has to win every season, so just because he won the first season, that doesn't make him a genius. Wouldn't it have been easier to win when none of the players had seem it before?

 

[Brent M]

Hatch is not Yoda and he didn't invent the game. He was a good player who outsmarted a much less skilled player to win in season 1, but he was a complete joke in the All-Stars season where his "strategy" consisted of brilliant moves like rubbing his wang on Sue.

 

[AnthonyC]

His performance in All-Stars has absolutely no bearing on how well he plays the game. Maybe in the first season, he was essentially shooting fish in a barrel, but I think a player of his sort would do well in any season (although obviously the Richard Hatch has a reputation that precedes him...just like how Russell Hantz will be an early boot when he plays again--unfortunately, it's when, not if).


Richard's game has really become oversimplified over the years. He actually wasn't even the first player to propose alliances but that's his legacy, and over the ensuing years a bunch of armchair critics have concluded that if he hadn't done it, someone else would've, thus Rich is overrated. If anything, the guy's underrated because nobody ever acknowledges how great a social game he had. (Not that Russell fans will care about that.) Even in All-Stars, his fellow players seemed to like him and he almost avoided being the first boot on his tribe.

 

[Steve_Tk]

Originally Posted by mattCR

To be honest, when I first heard Hatch's argument on Taxes, I thought he had a valid point. He had assumed (incorrectly) that the $1M prize he received from CBS was "after taxes" and that CBS had paid it out as a post-tax amount.


Foolish, but a decent argument. If he could have won that argument, that CBS had ever let him believe that, that would have been epic

That's the same excuse I would of used had I been caught in hopes of receiving a lesser penalty with interest