Survivor: Gabon - Season 17 - Page 3

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I can see why the elders are the ones picked to start choosing the
team as they would probably be the last picked if done otherwise.

The only complaint I have about the show is the dramatic music
during the tribal voting. Could really bring this show down to a
more realistic level if they cut all the hype elements. I still would
like to know how much of this show is real as far as people really
out there surviving the elements.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Yeah, they go way overboard with the silly music. After a while you'll just be laughing...I hope.

This season looks to have a good group. I think it's going to a good one. The players tend to ignore the cameras after a while and truly become as much "themselves" as possible. Afterall, it's a million bucks.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

As has been remarked before, I'm not overly thrilled with the LA-demographic heavy casting for this season, but the opening show was solid. I wonder if MB & Co have some twists up their sleeves to switch things up; a lopsided show can get boring.

I found Charlie's glomming on to Marcus a bit creepy, too, but I also wondered if Marcus was being a more strategic player than was portrayed; much as some of the women in previous seasons have done, Marcus may be using someone's attraction to him for manipulation and strategy.

I also felt sorry for Ken; Michelle found him to be the least pitiable of the men in Fang, but he didn't realize that isn't the same thing as her actually liking him or finding him attractive.

Don't like Randy at all - he just comes across as mean.

And I think there's some interesting pyschological questions from the show, based on the stark differences between Fang and Kota. What makes a group cohere? What actions and words are good for creating a stable, productive community vs one where things are left undone and no one's willing to step up? Does productive mean healthy?

I know, I know - it's just a show, and one probably far more "scripted" than I'd care to think. But still interesting questions.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Thanks, Mike. Good read.

As far as watching other seasons? Doubtful. I have a hard time
watching all the shows lined up on my Tivo these days.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Yeah, the lack of food thing can produce a lot of entertainment...for the viewer anyway. My favs include the discovery that rats are edible and the popping of the bird seed (since the, uhm...erm, bird didn't need it...anymore...heh heh).

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

They can survive anything as long as they can shave their armpits and legs (the girls, that is).

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

So grannie is gone. It was probably for the better. She was physically weak and was starting to get annoying.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Whew, I would have been livid if Ace had gone. Mixed feelings on Sugar finding the idol--I just can't really see her using it properly, but I do like her. Didn't really like Fang's comeback, I don't really care for them at all.

Kelly and Jacquie are so interchangeable in both their looks and in their entertainment value (or lack thereof).

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

How did Marcus have an immunity idol? Did he find one last week that I've already forgotten about? Also, did anyone notice the very obvious editing when Sugar was hunting for the idol? She looked completely different(hairstyle, clothes, etc) in 3 or 4 consecutive shots. Either the search wasn't all done in the same day or they "re-enacted" her finding all the clues. Interesting.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I was confused about that, too. I checked Wikipedia and it says that he won it in the first challenge, where the last part was getting up the hill. The first person from each team got an immunity idol; I thought it was just the first person, regardless of team, that got one. I only remember GC getting his, since he was the first one.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

"Pa-Lo-Muh" That's pretty tacky.

Nice butt on Corinne. Surprised she didn't get the blur treatment.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I would have been pissed as well if Ace was booted.....probably my favourite survivor of the bunch so far. Very calm, cool and collected unlike some of the more flaky characters on the show.....Fang is full of them.

Glad that Paloma...hateful little b**** that she was, was shown the way out. Her constant griping about Ace was getting on my nerves.

What's the deal with the Olympian? I could understand crying after winning a gold medal at the Olympics, but after a Survivor challenge? Geez.....

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

It was bugging me who Paloma looked like, and I finally figured it out at the end of the show -- she looks like Debbie Downer. I'll have to get a separated at birth together when I have the time.

It struck me as funny that the slip and slide challenge allowed for the producers to distribute bikinis to the female contestants (and small ones at that). Was I the only one that was thinking, "real, fake, VERY fake, real..." If they keep their bikinis on, I will finally be able to tell apart the two interchangeable blondes by looking for implants. At some point, I will have to match up the names with the boobs. Also, no one in Fang was bikini worthy. Just to add... Sugar sports one of the biggest turn-offs in my book -- while I'm no fan of tatoos, the ones around the belly button skeeve me out to no end. Yuck!

Randy continues to crack me up. He's my favorite Fang member. He's so misanthropic -- I love the night visions shots of him just glowering at his tribemates with seething contempt.Other than him and Kenny, I don't even care about the rest of that tribe.

While it is obvious that Ace put Paloma on the pole (!) to expose her weakness, I think he threw the last round because Paloma's weaknesses would be highlighted more with a loss than a win. No one would care as much if Paloma tanked it if they won the challenge.

You would think that being a physics professor would give Orville Reddenbocker the edge in a math puzzle, but in the end, he's not Asian. It's like they engineered a challenge for Fang to win. I was surprised at how hard Orville was playing the game back at camp. He struck me as more of a quiet, internal player, but he was laying his cards out.

In last week blog, Jeff Probst said that Dan was such an overthinker that he psyched himself out of the HII. Probst thought it was actually pretty easy to find, as Sugar illustrated. Dan was so turned around that he kept searching in the lake when the clue said beyond the lake.

And welcome to the club Ron. Most of us have been at it since season one.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Someone was mentioning the food factor. Remember in season 2, australia, when they were starving and it flooded and washed away their camp. then one of the survivors, was it Colby? Ran out on a fallen tree over the huge flood to try and save their bucket of rice? I think the show even had to come in and give them more rice because they were so starved. I could be wrong on the season, or the persons involved, but I remember that incident.

I noticed that too Hanson about the Silicon. However, Kelly is is very good shape and should stay in whatever bikini they give her. This isn't the first season that the producers gave the contestants swim trunks/bikinis after a few days in suit and tie though.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Wowsee Wowsee! I love this show! Could be my favorite show
of the season thus far.

I can't get over the undermining that goes on between the survivors.
I made a joke about this earlier, but it reminds me so much of my
day job with all the backstabbing that goes on there.

I have to go along with all of you saying Ace is my favorite survivor.
I worry for him because there was more than one vote to oust him
at this week's tribal meeting. People don't seem to like him taking
on the position of leader especially if they feel him to be condescending.

Sugar must have been very confident to hold on to her immunity
idol and not use it. She had to think that she was going to be voted
off, that is unless she got word from Ace that Paloma was on the
chopping block.

Next to go on Fang is Susie. Next to go on Kota would have been
Sugar, but because of her secret immunity status I think it will be Jacque.

(Hope I have this all figured out right).

And, Hanson, I love the Orville Reddenbocker reference. Funny shit!

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Can't stand Ace, he won't last long if Kota keeps losing ICs. Sugar should have not told Ace about her HII.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

You're right on the season, but it was Keith and Tina who braved the water to save the rice. It was only two or three days after Probst came in and offered the trade of rice for the tribe's shelter.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

BTW, forgot to mention....

I love the fact this show is in HD with all the beautiful shots,
but all of it is ruined by the mosquito noise compression DirecTV uses.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I'm with Patrick, can't stand Ace.

I find him to be a smug, arrogant jerk. I'm guessing he's on the short list to be voted off. Wonder if he'll throw a tantrum next week to find out who the second vote came from.

GC is a hopelessly lazy slacker, probably also leaving soon. Might just be their typical editing, but I've never seen anyone stop and take breaks the way he did during challenges. Even last year, Chet was often exhausted by challenges, but at least he tried, he didn't just sit back on his ass and watch others work on the challenge.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

I agree, I've watched every season and I cannot remember another contestent who was as lazy, and a thug to boot around camp, the bad mouthing he did with Randy because he suggested they limit the rice and have two meals instead of three showed he doesn't have a clue, he ranks as my least favorite character of ALL seasons, not just this one.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Yay! At least the non-Sugar blonde conundrum is finally settled with tonight's boot-off.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Well, this is certainly the earliest shake up of tribes in the show's history. I was surprised they re-organized only 3 weeks in, but I guess they'll do anything to surprise people at this point.

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

It could be argued that they had to do it because they didn't want another Paulau (at least, an unentertaining Paulau). But I think they planned it from the start -- have a schoolyard pick 'em with total strangers, and then have them pick again after a week of knowing each other to better balance the teams.

The biggest loser in this was Orville Reddenbacker. Obviously, it was an age issue, but more than that, it was a perception issue -- at 57, he's not really that old (there have been plenty of hale and hardy and physically dominant 50-something males in the history of survivor), but he looks 70-something (and is emaciated to boot).

The biggest gainer was Randy, who polled surprisingly high in his tribe, was picked in the middle by his peers, and scored all the goals in the immunity challenge. My favorite Randy moment was when he told his tribe that he hated all of them and they all laughed it off -- expect he wasn't really joking. If this Survivor iteration ever devolved into cannibalism, Randy would be chewing off arms and fingers with gusto.

Ace's fake accent slipped during one of the confessionals (I know he's from London, but from what I've read, his real accent isn't that pronounced). I still don't know what the fake accent strategy is. To make him appear more douchey? But what I don't understand is that he clearly showed everyone else how to use your arms instead of the paddle to maneuver during the immmunity challenge, and yet everyone flailed around in the tiny boats clutching their useless paddles except for Marcus.

Wow. Crystal, GC, and Ken are perhaps the worst Survivor strategists to hold a voting majority, and Matt isn't really much help. The fact that they thought for even a second about voting off Kelly, who is in their hip pocket for Jackie was head-spinningly dumb. Jackie's fault was to spend too much time with Ace -- she should have been cozying to with the obvious Fang majority. Too little, too late. BTW, Kelly may actually be more anti-social than Randy. She gets into an alliance with the Fang members, yet takes the time to call out Crystal and Kenny at Tribal Council. If everybody hates you, is it their fault or yours?

Charlie said he had Marcus' back... In his dreams! Zing!

If I had played the Survivor Gabon Elephant Sighting Drinking game (one shot for every elephant sighting), I would have blown a .12 BAC. Next week -- MORE ELEPHANTS!

Re: Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

Has anyone else noticed that Dan is like a grown up version of Michael Cera from Superbad and Arrested Development? It's almost creepy how much he looks and sounds like that kid.