Survivor: Gabon - Season 17 - Page 2

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I hate the Fang tribe, and not all that entertained by the Kota tribe. Not a good start to the season so far. All of this "no one wants to be the leader" stuff is uninteresting television.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I thought it was a good premiere and kudos to CBS for FINALLY putting this show in HD, even though they're about 5 years too late.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

High Definition saved the show for me as a lot of the tribe members are less than interesting. I've always felt that the real star of the show is the environment and HD really shows it off at its best. I feel that this season will be a success because everything is shown a lot more clearly in HD and this alone ups the ante for viewers.

Incidentally, because of the double elimination it appears that those of us entering the Top Ten Challenge will have a pool of 14, not 15 remaining contestants to choose from. Still a "challenging" exercise....

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Very cute, but that acne was brutal in HD.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Her skankiness was brutal in HD as well. That SD pic looks 1000X better than the HD version. The first areola and cameltoe blurring of the season. Did I miss something or did she not get to address the camera after her vote off?

Mrs. Claus was crazy annoying. Was very glad that they voted her off.

Was there any explanation as to why they were wearing dresses and suits? And why did that one guy insist on wearnig his tie to TC?

Orville Reddenbacker is going to get crazy skinny when the food gets scarce. He's in his fifties, but he looks like he much older. I guess living in Maine does that to you.

I was impressed with the HD visuals as well. It looked composed for widescreen instead of shot protected (I guess it would be difficult to shoot protected the way they film the show). My only disppointment was that it had a film-like look and not the razor sharp, ultra-colorful quality that makes some HD material eye-popping and almost 3-D in perception. It could have been my cable provider, but Survivor had the highest bitrate of the night (the file size at the hour mark was almost twice as big as the Ugly Betty file), and I have seen this look on other shows on CBS through Comcast.

I think, as it is with all seasons of Survivor, that judging the cast/entertainment value at this point of the competition is simply too early. It takes 5 or 6 shows to really see if the season is going anywhere.

If you want to get wasted, drink every time they show elephants. Man, MB must love elephants.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I enjoyed it. I have to sometimes remember that there are not any fan favorites on the show this time so it will take several episodes to get used to the new people.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

There was text during the episode mentioning that you can see the votes and final words at the website.

Watch Full Episodes, Video Clips, and Behind the Scenes footage of Survivor on CBS.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Things that stood out (good and bad)…

I kept asking myself, haven’t any of you watched this show before? This is a physical show at the beginning – so if you have to pick someone out of a lineup, pick someone who might be good at a challenge. Two of the first 3 picked for the Fang tribe were the last ones up the hill on the first challenge.

After you have had a challenge so you can see where people stand, you don’t vote off your top performing woman in both challenges you performed because she is a little negative – get rid of the equally annoying older woman who is holding everyone back, and then the next worse performing person.

I thought she was kind of funny when the first girl to be voted off was saying how these folks on her tribe were morons – I had to agree with her. She called out “Mr. Leader” for just quitting on digging for the pieces – which is what half of them did…

Her parting shots were also good:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivo...lay=true&cc=85

Mrs. “I’ve won a gold medal so I’m going to rule the challenges” was second to last going up the hill…it seems like her running days are way behind her. Either she had an injury that ended her track carrier or she just let herself get way out of shape.

It’s going to be one of those seasons where one side just rules and wins everything until a merge happens. They now have more food, the fishing gear, and are able to sit out two players per challenge. The science guy seems like this seasons Yao man..but he needs to ditch the bow tie.

The casting is also starting to look like an MTV show – having to have at least one overtly gay person in the cast for each season. His flamboyant man crush was just way over the top and kind of creaped me out.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivo...lay=true&cc=85

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Quite possibly the dumbest collective group of survivors ever compiled for the show.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

The gay guy totally reminded me of Ross the Intern. Maybe not so much looks wise, but if you close your eyes and listen to him talk, you may think, "did Jay send Ross to participate in Survivor?"

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

For those who want a direct link to the voting results:

First Eposode voting:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivo...lay=true&cc=85

I was a little surprized - found this in the recap:

"With eight of the nine votes cast against her, Michelle becomes the first person voted out of SURVIVOR: GABON -- EARTH'S LAST EDEN."

Look at the video, and you can hear each persons reason for their vote...

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

It wasn't too nice in standard def, either.

Good thing she's gone. She was too thin to play this game.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Michelle was a socially inept player who relied of the members of her tribe to be as "smart" as she thought she was, and wasn't able to see how her interaction or lack of interaction with the "idiots" gave off a whiney/aloof vibe that others found socially unworthy to stay in the game.

Physicality only takes you so far in the game. Michelle relied on her own physical prowess to do her talking among the tribe, but she neglected the social performance needed to put people at ease with her presence in the tribe. She neglected to become a person who could build consensus to vote out anyone but herself. Instead, she allowed the shortcomings of the others to affect how she presented herself to others, and her disdain for her tribemates was all too apparent. This is not a winning strategy to win friends and influence people.

Only a few truly physical players have been able to garner enough votes at the end to be voted the winner of the game. Fireman Tom was probably the last physically dominant player to win the game (season 10). Aras (season 12) was good physically, but I didn't find him as dominant in that aspect of the game and had a better alliance (as Terry was the bigger physical force, but just came up short on the lillypads). Brian (season 5) was a physical presence, but only later in the game after he was able to use other players to eliminate the stronger players in his season, and he took a universally hated player to the finals. Ethan (season 3) was an agile and physically strong competitor, and another strong player who made fewer enemies on the jury (having Lex as a lightning rod helped Ethan). Colby (season 2) should have won in spite of being a physical player, but his "momma" complex kicked in at the wrong time.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

She definitely looks a lot better in that "day after" video and she was probably the 2nd best looking girl out there. Too bad she got booted off first.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

As others have commented, the show sure looks great in HD, although they went overboard with all the money shots of elephants. Okay, I get it. Elephants live in Africa. One nice thing I noticed in HD, was the aerial shot of the course where the teams had to roll the big balls. I was surprised at how long the course was. You get a good idea of the course length in widescreen.

For once, I'd like to see a season of Survivor where the two teams enter the merge with no clear dominant team. Yet again, we seem to be going down the path where one team clearly sucks and will disintegrate all the way to the merge and the dominant tribe will pick off the other side one by one until they have to cannibalize their own. It all becomes so predictable. Hopefully there will be shuffling of the teams before it gets too predictable.

Too bad Michelle got the boot first. I was looking forward to how she was going to manipulate the gamer guy and his puppy dog crush.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Man, that was good! Reminded me of the understated way the first season went. I'm very excited about this season.

I mean, you got...

BOB who seemed to be an unstopable senor. Perhaps, some clever editing? He's one to watch...if he somehow has the stamina in that skinny, wrinkled old body of his.

CHARLIE and MARCUS sittin in a tree! K-I-S-S-ING! HAHAHA!! Naaaw. Both are outstanding people persons. MARCUS looks like a cross between Paul Newman and Michael J. Nelson from MST3K, so it's no wonder CHARLIE is bowled over by him. MARCUS is the most like me...well, I don't look like either guy, but I beleive I'd play the game the same. Way. If these 2 were the final 2 I'd be happy about it.

CRYSTAL could be awesome later on if she lasts. Those nice shoes and she couldn't get up the hill? WTF! But she has a lot of smarts. I love it when she said "He's a lawyer!!"

DAN. Another intelligent player. But he better win some immunities for himself.

RANDY. Awesome player. He's like this season's Jonathan maybe? I hope to hell he can stay in it a while because he's the kind that will stir things up and keep it fun to watch.

KEN isn't going to last long. My prediction: gone next week or the next.

ACE will annoy too many people. He won't be there long.

GC might be worth some laughs. "Welll...I...I'll be the...I'll be the leader....but...I don't wanna be the leader...but I'll...I'll..." Hahaha!! As a leader he stank. He needs to stay in the background for now. Be careful and let people forget what happened this episode.

MICHELLE and GILLIAN deserved to be voted off because they played it all wrong.

Biitch biitch biitch biitch biitch!!!

Goodbye ladies!

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Oh, wanted to add that I didn't see where I could watch it in HD online. The standard version looked better than my snowy rabbit ears but still nothing to write home about. CBS should ask ABC how they stream because ABC is like BOB the school teacher and CBS is like Michelle the bitcher!

I had problems when I paused the thing to go get a glass of walmart COLA. It didn't want to unpause. Same prob in Firefox3 AND IE7. I had to close my browser then restart the thing over and over. Finally figured out I could let it roll and when I got back just click on the line to take it back. Worked perfectly.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Seriously, how does the Olympian justify picking Susie over the remaining contestants during the tribe pick-off?

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

See my original post in this thread.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Sometimes Jeff annoys me, because he can be really blatant when he really like a particular contestant and favours them beyond what is justified or (think his treatment of Ozzy over Yul, or just his constant praise of the underperforming James).

But in the opening episodes, we got the other, more entertaining part of Jeff's inability to hide his opinion. He was positively mocking of Fang, expressing nothing of contempt for them in the first half, and then openly surprised when they managed to pull out a close second place in the second episode.

re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I perhaps worded my comment badly, making him seem like he was still mocking them after the boulder race. I agree, he was trying to be praise them for doing so well. But I did think there was an element in his voice of "I was expecting you guys to suck, so I'm surprised you made it so close, but well done on your effort."

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

WoW! All my favorite people are here (including Hanson Yoo)

Well, I a newbie to this series. Never really considered watching
it as I tend to stray away from reality shows, but you can thank
RAF for talking me into giving this show a try. For some reason my
Tivo did not tape this past week's show so I just watched the 2-hour
premiere online.

For the most part, I am hooked! I really love the premise of this
show. I love the undercutting dirty politics. Reminds me of my day job.

It was sort of easy to see who the first two people to be voted
off would be. Jillian was just too old, resulting in her
pulling back the younger group. Michelle just didn't want
to be there, something which was obvious from the start.

The Fang tribe is pretty awful all around. I think they will continue
to fall behind. They really put anyone on this show, don't they.

I really don't know what to expect from this show nor how really
tough it is for these participants knowing there are cameras and
emergency crews at hand should anyone need it. I would like to
think that these people are really on their own out in the wild and
that survival instincts really come into play here.

As I mentioned, I really like this show. I can see early on that this
could be one of my favorite shows this season. It's certainly has me
on the edge of my seat more than the traditional fare (like FRINGE)
that I have been watching as of late.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Glad you like it, Ron--I know a lot of people automatically turn away because of that "reality TV" umbrella, but all it really comes down to is whether it's good or not, and even the few dud seasons of Survivor have been worth watching.

I enjoyed the premiere although I felt the opening pick'em really caused the first hour to drag. The second half was pretty strong though, so I'm glad they opted to do the first two episodes back-to-back; otherwise I wouldn't have been as satisfied with the premiere.